FOOD Our Grocery Stores Now Packaging & Selling Items in 1/2 Sizes or Less.

Grammytomany

Inactive
For the past month our grocery stores have been out of a lot of products that we have been buying each week for years. Now they are selling items like bread in 1/2 loaf sizes. Butter by the stick instead of the pound, etc., etc. Prices are over the moon. This past week was real sticker shock. :eek:
 

Suzieq

Veteran Member
For the past month our grocery stores have been out of a lot of products that we have been buying each week for years. Now they are selling items like bread in 1/2 loaf sizes. Butter by the stick instead of the pound, etc., etc. Prices are over the moon. This past week was real sticker shock. :eek:
Wow! What city & state is this in?
 

dstraito

TB Fanatic
I noticed yesterday that Lowes inventory was very low. They normally carry a bunch of welding wire and I got the last one in .25. The shelves were pretty bare. I'm thinking things are generally worse nationwide than we even know.

The additional taxes that people are paying are having an effect on disposable income. Higher energy costs also dip into that disposable income. People can't buy as much. The ripple effect, the loss of multiplier is going to cause things to continue in a downward spiral. The current administration is inept Economically and is wrong thinking on the solutions so almost anything they try will cause more damage. It doesn't look good folks.
 

MtnGal

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Haven't seen the smaller packaging here, yet. I've often wished for 1/2 loafs of bread, being one person. Now, I'll get my wish only at twice the price of a whole loaf.

I have noticed the size difference in many things they are calling regular size. The box/bag is the same size, the product is less. Bought a box of ice cream sandwiches the other day and they had cut the sandwich size down considerably. Couldn't tell until I got it home and opened it.

I think it's going to get very bad all over by harvest season this year.

Will it wake people up? I don't know anymore, they are too mesmerized by this gov. they've lost the ability to think for themselves.
 

kytom

escapee from reality
Wow! What city & state is this in?
there arent big families anymore. i lived in amsterdam netherlands for a years. in the store they sold half loaves of bread, 100 gram (1/4 lb) packages of ham. the family is shrinking no need for family packs!
 

Vegas321

Live free and survive
there arent big families anymore. i lived in amsterdam netherlands for a years. in the store they sold half loaves of bread, 100 gram (1/4 lb) packages of ham. the family is shrinking no need for family packs!

Only problem with that today is that they don't shrink the package and still charge the same or even up the price. It's the mfg. trying to sell the product by fooling the sheep that it's still the same. But like this economy, it's all an allusion. The curve of inflation will get steeper and accelerate faster.
 

tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
In the Wal-Mart thread about January and February sales really sucking, I seem to recall Wal-Mart mentioned starting to do this very thing in order to capture people with less money to spend. And, of course, alert TB2Kers have already noted (and posted about) the toiletpaper rolls being narrower than before.

I just got a notice from my apartment complex that "the City of Gresham has implemented a [monthly] $7.50 service charge per household for residents living in the City of Gresham. This service charge will be used to maintain current essential service levels related to Police, Fire, and Parks ..." So now they're raising taxes (but are calling it a "service charge") on things they've ALREADY raised taxes on and issued bonds for, and as far as I know they did this without public approval or a request for comment or whatever. That $7.50 per month is what amounts to one less fast food meal eaten out, or a package of meat not purchased for home cooking, or a few less impulse purchases, etc.

The point being, we're being nickel-and-dimed to death from every direction. And some people are still apparently genuinely bewildered why the economy isn't booming ...
 

Satanta

Stone Cold Crazy
_______________
Fl and I needed Chili last weekend. The can was the size of a Campbells soup. Can.
 
Just wait til gasoline is sold by the half gal., quart or liter (as in other countries).

$4-5 / gal. is the good old days - the agenda is to have it in the $8 - 10 range.
Under 'his' program prices will necessarily double...and you damned well who 'he' is.


It's coming - and sooner than you think.
 

Vicki

Girls With Guns Member
All you have to do is try using an older cookbook and it's easy to see the sizes have changed. We're being squeezed from every angle.
 

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
All you have to do is try using an older cookbook and it's easy to see the sizes have changed. We're being squeezed from every angle.

Even in the past two years that is happening. Many recipes now call for a 14b or 15 oz can of something that used to be 16 oz.

Ahh, the blessings of canning your own food. It has definitely been a budget stretcher for us.
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Just wait til gasoline is sold by the half gal., quart or liter (as in other countries).

$4-5 / gal. is the good old days - the agenda is to have it in the $8 - 10 range.
Under 'his' program prices will necessarily double...and you damned well who 'he' is.


It's coming - and sooner than you think.

The euros are still pissed off that we pay so little for food and for petro. Thing is is we have 20x the amount of open spaces that they have, for some reason they think the entire contintent looks like NYC when in fact that's not the norm.

K-
 

Milk-maid

Girls with Guns Member
I'd rather they be honest with us as far as size and price, than to deceive us with big packaging full of air (cereal + chips) or full of slush water (tuna) etc.

Especially that last episode with Makers Mark Bourbon. It was filled with 42-45% water. Now that was a real travesty! :lol:
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
They have been doing this in Ireland for awhile - now some of it has always been here; elderly ladies have told me that when they were young wives men had the cars and did the driving, "cars were for men, not women." So rural women especially would often end up walking to the village shop with a shoulder bag for anything they ran out of when husband was busy in the fields. Elderly people to this day (both sexes) can still be seen walking the dangerous and winding roads with no sidewalks to buy a carton of milk or half-loaf of bread; so those products always existed here.

But, starting about three years ago (about a year into the banking collapse) I started noticing "full sized" products with the boxes staying the same size and the contents being cut by one-third. Then a few months or a year later, they might be cut by one-third again; things that did not change size had a price creep that was slow enough to make it look normal until you thought about it. Butter that had always been about 1 Euro (50 cents on sale) was suddenly 2 Euro (on sale for one). This year it is now often 3 Euro a stick (double sized for an American stick) on sale for 2 Euro etc..

I can handle the honest price rises, that happens and at least you can compare apples with apples easier. But the 16 oz cans that become 14 oz over a period of three or four years (or the metric version) make me nuts and the "on-sale now 12 pack" of what last week was an 18 pack downright make me angry. Especially when the box is exactly the same size (wasting cardboard if nothing else) and the entire is obviously to keep people from realizing they are now paying more for 12 on-sale than they paid for 18 at full price a mere week before.

People are just not that stupid, they do see what is going on and they do tend to shop elsewhere - here they tend to turn to discounters like Aldi and Lidls that simply didn't exist until a few years ago. There, portion sizes may be weird and the brands strange but people get less angry because they consider the food to be "cheap," which may not be fair but that is how people tend to shop.
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
The euros are still pissed off that we pay so little for food and for petro. Thing is is we have 20x the amount of open spaces that they have, for some reason they think the entire contintent looks like NYC when in fact that's not the norm.

K-

Well, as I've pointed out before, some places in Europe have 10 dollar a gallon gas and are not closely linked together, do not have good public transport and drive "American style" commutes. Er..a..that would be where I live in Ireland and in parts of Scotland and the UK (especially the London "commuter belt").

I won't repeat on this thread what I've said in others but 10 dollars a gallon for gas does put a real dint in your lifestyle. You stop traveling anywhere you don't have to, you combine your trips to the store and you spend a lot more time at home and forget about things like dining out or going to a movie. Then the government wonders why people stop spending money at the grocery store and even less on "optional" things like cameras, computers or even new cars.
 

Oilpatch Hand

3-Bomb General, TB2K Army
They make the packages smaller instead of increasing prices because customers gripe a whole bunch when the price increases.

They complain far less when the package size decreases while the price for the package remains the same.

It's still symptomatic of price inflation, because you're having to pay more per unit for whatever commodity you're buying. But as long as the price on the package stays the same, most consumers don't notice that they're being charged more per unit because the package is smaller.
 

My Adonai

Veteran Member
Just finished a little seed starter greenhouse, and have planted a dozen different varieties of veggies/corn. Get those seeds started folks. 2013 isn't going to be pretty.
 

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
Went looking for bacon while grocery shopping yesterday. I saw a 12 oz. package of bacon that was divided into two easily separated 6 oz packages - and cost what a full 1-pound single pack cost.
 

GunGirl

Contributing Member
When I got married in Sept., DH and I decided on our first grocery run to get a canister of grits. $.89. Now they are $2.09, in five months!

No one can tell me there is no inflation.
 

Tennessee gal

Veteran Member
Haven't seen the smaller packaging here, yet. I've often wished for 1/2 loafs of bread, being one person. Now, I'll get my wish only at twice the price of a whole loaf.

I have noticed the size difference in many things they are calling regular size. The box/bag is the same size, the product is less. Bought a box of ice cream sandwiches the other day and they had cut the sandwich size down considerably. Couldn't tell until I got it home and opened it.

I think it's going to get very bad all over by harvest season this year.

Will it wake people up? I don't know anymore, they are too mesmerized by this gov. they've lost the ability to think for themselves.

MtnGal, I have notice that some cereal boxes are the same size but the box is less than half full. Other cereal the boxes are the same height but thinner. They have also cut the size of ice cream containers.
 

zeker

Has No Life - Lives on TB
yep try buying your gasoline by the litre..biggest scam ever.. yesterday it was 1.38/ltr.. my math aint good but even I can see its well over $5 gal.. and a cpl months ago i went to the supermarket.. bot all the usual stuff but ended leaving the case of kleenex in the cart and driving off.. DUH! dumb day.. next day went to drug store to buy 1 pk to get me by.. a very small pk was less than 100 inside $1.29 and I looked thru the clear top.. it was half full.. showed it to the clerk.. didnt buy it.. ended up getting serviettes instaed. its just a nose.
 
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