A lot of Consumerist readers are Sodastream fans, and a number of you wrote in with some sad news: as part of a redesign of its proprietary line of flavoring syrups, the bottles are now smaller. How much smaller? The old version made 50 servings of flavored drink, and the new versions make only 29. Why 29? Why not 30? Such are the mysteries of the Grocery Shrink Ray. [More]
grocery shrink ray
Rare Grocery Growth Ray Sighting At Costco: Detergent Grows By 10 Pods
By 10.19.15
While detergent pods still have some safety issues and still sort of look a little bit like candy, here’s one inspiring piece of news about them. A few weeks ago, we wrote about Costco’s Kirkland Signature pods shrinking, losing 10 pods from a 130-pod package. Costco contacted us to point out that our reader actually got this backwards: they had recently made the packages bigger, not smaller. [More]
Mustard Shrink Ray Squeezes Out An Ounce From Redesigned Bottle
By 10.8.15
Mary bought a new bottle of Heinz mustard, but noticed something when she got the bottle of the condiment home. The bottle had been redesigned, which masked a strike from the Grocery Shrink Ray. Even worse, she thinks that the flavor is now worse. Or does it just seem that way because the jar is smaller? [More]
Costco Shrink Rays Bins Of Detergent Pods Ever So Slightly
By 10.5.15
The Grocery Shrink Ray stealthily takes away small portions of all kinds of consumer products: food, beverages, personal care items, and cleaning supplies. Even the super-sized containers at Costco aren’t immune: 130 loads of laundry since his last purchase, Ed noticed that his newest container has fewer detergent pods in it than the last one. Update: Actually, Costco increased the quantity of pods! [More]
Grocery Shrink Ray Strikes Aldi Bread, Gillette Anti-Perspirant
By 9.29.15
The Grocery Shrink Ray quietly removes almost imperceptible bits of our packaged goods, gradually shrinking some products over time so manufacturers can avoid raising prices. Once you’re aware of it, you begin to notice it every time you buy a slightly smaller replacement for a product that you use regularly. Two readers who bought bread and deodorant noticed exactly that. [More]
Slack Fill: The Grocery Shrink Ray’s Sneakier Twin
By 9.28.15
What does it mean to under-fill a consumer product package? We’ve all opened boxes and bags that seemed more full before we saw what was inside, or a few tiny over-the-counter pills in a bottle stuffed with cotton. When is this considered “misleading,” and when is it just a normal thing that protects products? [More]
2 Ounces Quietly Shrink Rayed From Economy-Size Bottles Of Shout
By 9.14.15
Jarrod was shopping at Target when he noticed something: there were two different designs of Shout bottles on the shelf. Since redesigns often mask strikes of the Grocery Shrink Ray, he checked the labels, even though the bottles appeared to be the same size. Indeed, the 32-ounce “economy size” bottle shrank down to 30 ounces, but at least the price came down, too. [More]
Dollar Tree Shrink Rays One Scoop Out Of Nacho Cheese Dip
By 8.10.15
Dollar stores have a unique challenge: their price point is right there in their name. Chains like Family Dollar and Dollar General have instead turned into what could most accurately be called dollar-ish discount stores, but Dollar Tree still holds itself to the $1 price point, and that apparently means shrink raying its private-label food items to keep prices consistent. [More]
Walmart Advises Manufacturers Against Misleading Packaging
By 7.29.15
In apparent response to increased scrutiny on retail overcharging and manufacturers who are trying to hide the fact that customers are getting less than they used to, Walmart has asked its suppliers to make sure that their packaging isn’t misleading to customers. [More]
SpaghettiOs Celebrates 50th Birthday By Shrinking Cans To 14 Ounces
By 7.13.15
Happy 50th birthday, Spaghetti-Os! You’re a fun and traditional American brand and the favorite food of 4-year-olds across the nation. How are you going to celebrate? By taking back up to an ounce of your former can size? That doesn’t sound very festive, SpaghettiOs. [More]
Snyder’s Of Hanover Shrinks Tortilla Chip Bags By 3.5 Ounces To Fit In
By 7.9.15
The definition of how much food should be in a “family size” package is kind of fuzzy, but it’s apparent that snack food company Snyder’s of Hanover thinks that our families need to eat fewer tortilla chips. One perceptive tortilla chip fan reports that their “family size” bags are in the process of shrinking from 16 ounces to 12.5. [More]
Olay Shrink Rays Soap Bars, Users Remain Ageless And Beautiful
By 6.17.15
Jacob doesn’t buy soap very often, since his preferred brand is available in a 6-bar bulk pack. He discovered the last time he stocked up that the bars have considerably less bulk in them than they used to, though: each bar is now one quarter of an ounce lighter, for a total of one and a half ounces less soap in the bulk pack. [More]
Cottonelle Shrink Rays Toilet Paper Squares
By 6.4.15
When you need to use some Cottonelle toilet paper, do you find that the sheets feel just a bit narrower in your hand? Probably not: that’s the sneaky nature of the Grocery Shrink Ray. Rolls of Cottonelle Ultra toilet paper lost just a fraction of an inch from each square, but that adds up to a big loss in square footage in a whole package. [More]
Ivory Shrinks Body Wash Bottle, Switches Out Fragrance
By 5.20.15
Elizabeth has been a loyal user of Ivory’s Clean & Simple body wash for a long time, and she got an unpleasant surprise the last time she picked one up at the store. The package had been redesigned: no big problem there. She noticed, though, that the redesign washed away 3 ounces out of the 24-ounce bottle. Oh, no, it was the Grocery Shrink Ray! [More]
Weight Watchers Ice Cream Bars Set Good Example, Lose Weight
By 5.19.15
Weight Watchers-branded meals and snacks are supposed to make it easier to follow the Weight Watchers points system and, well, lose weight. Reader M is a fan of their packaged ice cream bars, and was disappointed when she noticed that they’re a little bit smaller than they used to be after a recent package redesign. Yes, it was the Grocery Shrink Ray. [More]
The Grocery Shrink Ray: Quietly Stealing Our Food For Decades
By 10.8.14
The Grocery Shrink Ray is what we call it when the manufacturers of food and consumer goods make their products smaller––sometimes almost imperceptibly smaller––rather than raise prices. You know what it looks like: it’s why your toilet paper doesn’t quite fill the holder anymore, and why you don’t get as many servings of hot chocolate as you used to. We know that it’s been in action for decades, but is there proof? Yes: one need only turn to collectors of consumer ephemera like boxes and cans. [More]
Borden Shrink Rays Cheese Package, Forgets To Destroy The Evidence
By 8.12.14
Elsie the Cow, mascot of Borden brand products, is good at many things. She can give milk, apparently. She looks very pretty, and can smile in her official portraits, even though we’re pretty sure cows can’t actually smile. What she isn’t very good at is covering her tracks. When Borden recently Shrink Rayed their packages of cheese to seven ounces, Elsie forgot to destroy the evidence. [More]
Walmart Shells 4 Ounces From A Pound Of Store-Brand Pistachios
By 5.7.14
Ernest likes to eat pistachios. He’s also a good consumer, checking unit prices and choosing the store brand of his favorite snack. When he picked up a bag at his local Walmart recently, he noticed that something was missing. About four ounces of pistachios, in fact. [More]
