We don’t eat saltines all that often here at Consumerist HQ, but we are certainly familiar with the classic cracker’s orthogonal form. Well Nabisco is out to shake up the “stuff you crumble into your soup” market by testing a round version of its Premium brand saltine.

The round crackers are just rolling out now through supermarkets in New England, where they’ll undergo a 4-month test.

But while Nabisco says the shape change was to present the Premium in a “relevant and contemporary way,” Consumerist reader Philip pointed us to this portion of this MassLive.com story:

Beyond its size, the new Saltines come in a smaller box (10.5 ounces vs. the traditional 16) with different packaging.

Could this be a matter of Nabisco literally cutting corners? If stores are still charging the same amount for a package that is only 65% of the size, then this is definitely the work of the infamous Grocery Shrink Ray.

We don’t know what the stores are charging for the new-look saltines, but if anyone in New England sees them and wants to help with a price comparison, that would be awesome.

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