The Incredible Shrinking Food Products

It seems that the soaring price of fuel is not only hitting the airline industry and the driving public as hard as it can but it is also having a negative effect on industry and consumers in general in terms of the size of the products that consumers find at their local grocery stores. It has happened before in the past when economic times get hard but this time around it is expected to be worse than usual. The way food companies like General Mills and Kelloggs try to offset their rising costs due to the price of fuel is to shrink their products. Items like cereal boxes, soap, paper towel rolls, and jars of sauce all shrink in size while the price remains the same in the hopes that the buying public will not notice any difference and thereby not complain. In the industry it is known as "shortsizing" and it is happening in every isle of your local supermarket and it is happening nationwide. It is in effect paying more for less which amounts to a price increase for the consumer. Kelloggs has already announced that it will shrink the size of most of its cereal boxes by 2 ounces. Frito Lay Potato chip bags will now have fewer chips in each bag and Bounty will cut the number of paper towels in each of its quilted rolls from 56 to 48. Edie's ice cream has reduced the size of its ice cream containers by 14%. This practice has been longstanding and it works. Most consumers never notice any difference but those who do feel that it is a bit sneaky. Food companies counter by saying that it is a nessassary move to help them deal with increasing fuel costs to transport their products to store shelves.