Wegman’s is recalling all in-store made bagels and bialys (flattened bagels) sold between August 24th and September 9th “because the bagels may contain pieces of a metal spring from a mixer that entered the dough.” If you have some, return them to your store’s customer service desk for a refund. Wegmans says this doesn’t affect their frozen bagels.
supermarkets
Video: The History Of Maxwell House Shrinkage
By 9.10.08
This video shows how a variety of food products have shrunk over the years, while the price remains the same, and the tricks manufacturers use so we don’t notice the differences. She stacks up the coffee cans as they go from 16 oz to 11 oz. At one point, Maxwell House says that while the size is going down, the potency is going up. “We’ve fluffed the beans!” they say. So then why do the instructions on the side of the can for the amount of coffee you use to make a perfect cup stay the same? Though we don’t really mourn for lost Maxwell House value, the example is illustrative of standard industry tactics, even on food that doesn’t taste like crap.
Mott's Will Help You Water Down Your Juice If You Like
By 9.9.08
Here’s a perfect example of why you should always approach “healthy” labeling on food products with a skeptical eye. Summer did a quick side-by-side comparison of regular Mott’s apple juice with new Mott’s Plus Light. What she found was that except for a few added vitamins, the Light product was just Mott’s juice diluted by 50% with water—but selling for the same price as the 100% juice.
Get Ready For An Onslaught Of Food Advertising
By 9.8.08
Foodmakers are planning to bombard you with advertising to keep you from ditching their carefully groomed brands for some blechy cheapo generics. Pay no attention as they try to re-brand their products as cheap and affordable. Here’s a small preview of what to expect…
Safeway IDs Everyone In Your Party When You Buy Beer
By 9.5.08
Daniel went to his local Safeway with his brother to buy some beer. Daniel had his ID, but his brother didn’t—but that’s okay, because Daniel was the one buying the beer. The cashier, however, felt otherwise, and wouldn’t complete the transaction without carding both of them. The store manager told him “the policy is, at the discretion of the clerk, to check the ID of every person present.”
'No Need To Stir' Skippy Natural Peanut Butter Requires Stirring, Or A Straw
By 9.2.08
As any convenience-seeking American knows, the bane of natural peanut butter is its tendency to separate into an unspreadable sludge of crushed peanut and an eager-to-spill pond of oil. You have to stir the two together to get back to the peanut butter texture you’ve come to expect from the hybridized brands. Skippy says they’ve solved the problem, but based on the two jars one customer bought, they’re plain nuts (wocka wocka!).
Fred Meyer Says Cheese Is Not A Dairy Product
By 8.12.08
Go shopping for cheese at the Ballard Fred Myer in Seattle, and you’ll learn an interesting new fact about your food:
Grocery Shrink Ray Hits UK
By 7.31.08
The Grocery Shrink Ray has expanded its range and is no longer just hitting the US. Pint-sized woe has befallen the the UK snack section. For one, the Dairylea triangle is shrinking from 180 to 160g per cheese wheel. Other shrunken products include Rolo, Palmolive, Olvatine, Dairy Milk, Mars bars, Yorkie chocolate bars, and Pringles.Check out the company double-talk as they tried to explain away the changes, sometimes with verbal softshoe, others with oddly pugilistic rebuttals:
Chicago Tribune Picks Up Grocery Shrink Ray
By 7.29.08
The Chicago Tribune quoted me in a piece on the Grocery Shrink Ray. Paraphrasing a food science. expert, it says, “Broadly defined, packaging costs often outweigh ingredient costs, Hotchkiss said. And a penny shaved off packaging can translate into millions of dollars in savings for a high-volume consumer product.” This is interesting because it means the greatest cost savings come from reducing package costs, rather than ingredient amount. Which means if they’re reducing ingredient amounts, they’ve got to be really hurting. Maybe if I really wanted to do my part to help the economy I should have spent that stimulus check on juice, cereal, paper towels, mayonnaise and ice cream.
Is Target Intentionally Using Its "Special Deals" To Screw Over Customers?
By 7.25.08
Dan can do math in his head, which is a great skill these days when you’re checking out the n objects for x price! specials at Target. In this case, Dan notes that the “temporary price cut” is so temporary that it doesn’t even exist: you’ll pay 13 cents more per box if you buy three of them. This is the third Target “special” we’ve seen this month that screws the consumer. Are we seeing a new trend? Is it legal to call it a price cut if it’s not?
Get Ready For More Supermarket Price Hikes
By 7.23.08
The notorious Grocery Shrink Ray was supposed to help prevent this, or so we were told by apologists for it, but Datamonitor is reporting that Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, ConAgra, Sara Lee, and Tyson “are all expected to announce a hike in the prices of their products” in the near future. Here are some of the hikes you can expect, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Grocery Shrink Ray Zaps Skippy Natural Peanut Butter
By 7.18.08
Pew! Pew! Grocery Shrink Ray zapped Skippy Natural Peanut Butter. You know what’s really going to be something? When they start raising the prices on all the products they shrunk. Then we’ll see some real purchasing power loss.
Visine Would Cost $1,021 If You Bought By Gallon
By 7.17.08
You cringe over the price of a gallon of gas, but what about a gallon of Visine? An article in the September issue of ShopSmart shows that if you bought the eye drops by the gallon, the price would be $1,021. Steak sauce? $48. Secret Platinum, $189. Obviously, no one buys Visine by the gallon, except for maybe Cyclops (hey, that stick still burns). Similiarly, except for hobbyists, no one buys a dropper of gasoline. And there are cost-savings by selling and buying items in bulk. Still, makes you think…
Is Your Milk Spoiling Faster?
By 7.17.08
I hosted a shrinking product chat over at WashingtonPost.com this morning and an interesting comment from someone in New Orleans came up about milk going bad:
By 7.15.08
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This morning, very early in the morning, we were on KTLK in Minnesota talking about, yep, you guessed it, the Grocery Shrink Ray. Clip is here. And earlier this week we were featured in an article in the UK’s Observer.
3 Ways To Beat The Grocery Shrink Ray
By 7.15.08
Is your supermarket the victim of The Grocery Shrink Ray, the force that is shrinking how much product you get while keeping the price the same? Here are three antidotes:
By 7.11.08
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For those of you who wanted a transcript of the NPR interview I did yesterday about the Grocery Shrink Ray, we added one here.
