Pepsodent Shrinks Toothpaste Tubes Slightly To Keep $1 Price Point

The Grocery Shrink Ray is what happens when a company wants to cut their expenses, but not raise their prices. Pepsodent is a bargain-brand toothpaste that you can pick up in most stores for $1, but reader Tony noticed something when he bought his last tube: it was half an ounce smaller than the previous one, which he still had handy.

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We tracked down who owns the Pepsodent brand in the U.S., and it turns out to be Church & Dwight, also known as the corporate parent of Arm & Hammer. We asked whether the changes to Pepsodent are permanent or something special for the dollar and dollar-ish store market. They didn’t get back to us. If they do, we’ll update this post.

Incidentally, Arm & Hammer was the manufacturer of the last toothpaste brand that we featured as a Grocery Shrink Ray perpetrator, back when they added more peroxide but shaved a third of an ounce off the total size of the tube.

Strangely, you can find both versions of Pepsodent on the market: Drugstore.com has both the 5.5 and 6-ounce versions available, at different prices. If you really have your heart set on that larger tube, you can pay a few cents more per ounce.

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