[HN Gopher] "Skimpflation" is hitting everything from food to ho...
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"Skimpflation" is hitting everything from food to hotels
Author : prostoalex
Score : 33 points
Date : 2022-10-05 21:25 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I remember when Hershey changed the recipe for Reese's Cups,
| removing palm oil, and other ingredients which made it less of an
| oily peanut butter, and more dry and cake like. I understand
| (now) the palm oil concern, but boy did it really change the
| texture and taste.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Oreos getting rid of lard was a staggering change. Then
| partially hydrogenated vegetable oils got the boot, and
| whatever they started using in Oreos after that was absolutely
| vile. They've improved somewhat in the last few years, but they
| are not really Oreos.
| zinckiwi wrote:
| _(sings)_ My sweet lard (...hallelujah)
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| I don't have soda (or sweet food) very often, but I do miss the
| taste (and rush) of real sugar. I've never tasted a
| reformulated product that comes close to the real thing.
| t-writescode wrote:
| And yet Arizona Ice Tea still has an MSRP of 99c
| uoaei wrote:
| The "S" in "MSRP" means that in practice you are paying more
| than that, due to inflated prices from the "R" who is selling.
| jdpedrie wrote:
| Arizona prints the price on the cans to discourage that. In
| my experience, that has worked.
| imgabe wrote:
| > One recent example of skimpflation that consumers did notice
| involved Conagra's Smart Balance spread, a dairy-free butter
| substitute. Conagra recently changed its formulation to reduce
| its share of vegetable oil from 64% to 39% -- an almost 40%
| reduction in vegetable oil.
|
| Ugh, nobody should be eating congealed vegetable oil in the first
| place. One more advantage of eating real food like butter is that
| they can't replace the ingredients with something else when it's
| just one ingredient.
| sneak wrote:
| Not all milk is of equal quality. Corners can be cut even with
| a single ingredient.
| imgabe wrote:
| The minimum quality milk is still better than vegetable oil
| or whatever industrial byproduct they're substituting for
| vegetable oil.
| sph wrote:
| The question is what do you replace vegetable oil in dairy free
| """butter""" with. Sawdust? Spent motor grease?
| throwaway699769 wrote:
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| If someone is vegan, telling them to eat butter instead is not
| much help.
|
| (Source: dating a vegan and try to convince them to eat butter
| on a daily basis)
| imgabe wrote:
| Olive oil would probably be a better vegan substitute for
| anywhere you would use butter. Although that can suffer from
| the same substitution problems.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Why would you do that? Don't you like who they are?
| dpeck wrote:
| Along with skimpflation in sizes, keep a look out for it in
| things like legally protected terms. For instance ice cream has
| to have a certain level of milk fat to be legally called "ice
| cream", if they aren't it'll be called something like "frozen
| dairy dessert".
| jabbany wrote:
| Huh.. that must explain why I've been seeing a lot of brands
| switching to the term "frozen yogurt" for what is essentially
| cheap "ice cream" (=> tastes nothing like actual frozen
| yogurt...).
|
| > Unlike yogurt, frozen yogurt is not regulated by the U.S.
| Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (wikipedia)
| josho wrote:
| This is a good test. If we truly are a capitalist economy then
| we'll see competition enter and new products that sell quality
| offerings.
|
| My prediction is that won't happen. There's been too much
| consolidation and efficiencies through scale that it's impossible
| for a company to get founded to sell a toilet paper that's not
| 20% thinner or any of the other examples mentioned.
|
| On the upside at least companies are cheating us out of our money
| only and no longer selling us products that will kill us due to
| safety or poisoning issues. That's progress.
| imgabe wrote:
| The market has to value quality offerings enough to pay for it.
| There are already more people expensive quality options, but
| most people prefer cheaper but good enough.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The quality products already exist, I'm guessing you aren't
| buying them because you want a cheaper option.
| jpdaigle wrote:
| Some product categories seem to have the middle of the market
| (quality wise) hollow out and disappear, so all you've got
| left is the low-end crap and high-end pricy versions, with no
| middle-range left.
|
| One example: try to buy a nice metal or leather band for an
| Apple Watch. There's the low-end ones, which are 4$ on
| alibaba re-sold on Amazon for 12$. There's the X00$ Apple-
| made first party ones, and that's it. Nobody's making a
| really nice ~45$ leather band without the Apple name (that's
| obviously not just the cheap alibaba ones with a better
| marketing site).
| mlrtime wrote:
| The worst part of Hotels are the additional Resort or Facility
| fees on top of room charges for features like wifi or a pool.
|
| I'm surprised we aren't seeing hotels where the resort fee is
| more than the nightly fee yet, like the old .01$ + 10$ shipping
| on ebay.
| lostgame wrote:
| My girlfriend and I would love that. We love to travel, but
| rarely have the time to use things like pools unless we've
| specifically rented a room with a double jacuzzi. (If you
| haven't done this, and have a partner; please do. I guarantee
| it'll make your lives while it's around.)
|
| If we didn't have to _pay_ for a pool we'd never use (we don't
| even pack bathing suits) that would be fantastic.
| zaphod12 wrote:
| Oh you think resort fees are optional? That would make sense.
| No no, they're tacked onto every bill.
| rconti wrote:
| Oh ye of much optimism. The resort fees are typically not
| optional.
| kaikai wrote:
| Unfortunately that's not how the fees work. You get charged
| for them whether you use them or not.
| babyshake wrote:
| Or the $50 daily valet fee. And don't forget the gratuitous
| tips expected when dropping off, picking up, or needing to get
| something from your vehicle.
| Magi604 wrote:
| I tend to hoard food and will consume it on a "first in last out"
| basis so I'm constantly rotating stock and nothing expires before
| being consumed.
|
| One day I noticed that the bag of mixed nuts I just bought was
| labelled 50g less than a bag I had purchased a few months ago. It
| wasn't the case that there were less nuts in the bag. The bag
| itself was smaller so as to maintain the appearance of
| robustness.
|
| What struck me is that this probably wasn't in response to any
| sort of supply or demand shock, but was probably already planned
| since the product was first introduced. The way the design on the
| package was already reconfigured and then the package distributed
| to factories to be filled with the new amount, the producers knew
| and planned beforehand that it would happen, number crunched and
| everything.
|
| So now I already internally think to myself that any consumable
| product that screams great value will inevitably fall victim to
| skimpflation, because it was planned from the start. Make an
| awesome product, get people hooked on it, and then slowly ratchet
| back the value to reap the gains. And of course hope people don't
| notice.
| amelius wrote:
| I don't mind smaller sizes. In fact, I prefer them, because I
| usually eat the entire package regardless of its size.
|
| Of course, I _do_ mind skimpflation, i.e., the reduction in
| quality.
| willcipriano wrote:
| This pattern with happening with tools. Milwaukee released a
| impact driver and it received great reviews, they were
| practically indestructible. They just released a revision of
| it, same model number and packaging but completely changed the
| inside and now you can't even change a set of tires with one
| before it dies.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iusVoa21daQ
| jacknews wrote:
| We've been having 'skimpflation' or 'crapiflation' for decades.
|
| The hedonic adjustment in the inflation figures accounts for eg
| washing machines getting relatively cheaper. But it doesn't
| account for the fact they've also been getting crappier and
| shorter-lived.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Oh man, the Smart Balance debacle was real! My spouse and I
| noticed that it doesn't melt anymore. We thought we were going
| crazy, until we read about it elsewhere. Suffice to say we've
| switched away from it now and won't be going back. What a dumb
| move by the manufacturer.
| googlryas wrote:
| They claim it is to make it more spreadable. I guess it is just
| a coincidence that it cuts their cost of ingredients by about
| 50%, since they only thing they replaced it with was water.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| I would really like to see a nutrition label for manufactured
| goods, including what countries parts come from. In particular I
| would love to see semantic versioning applied to manufactured
| products so it's easier to see when products change.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| The versioning is a good idea. I feel like we have the right to
| know when something has changed.
|
| As much as I want to know how much of what I'm eating is lead
| and sawdust from Elbonia, it sounds like it would be tricky to
| implement. Lots of constituent parts with mixed origins.
| Where's the maltodextrin from? The factories it was processed
| in? The countries where the grain came from? The place it was
| all packaged? We get into "nobody knows how to make a pencil"
| territory pretty fast. Though I like the spirit of the idea.
| Natsu wrote:
| Even with non-manufactured goods, I wonder how the nutrition in
| things like broccoli change over time. I remember hearing
| somewhere that some of the nutrients had gone down due to
| changes in farming practice, but I don't think I've seen much
| evidence that anyone is even tracking this.
| jabbany wrote:
| Ok.. the larger point about "inflation beyond just prices" is
| well understood but... why do people keep coining more and more
| new terms for this?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation#Skimpflation
| antiterra wrote:
| If they can't keep the price low then a lot of consumers will go
| for cheaper/lower quality goods anyway,
|
| Even for high-end enthusiast items, consumer sensitivity to price
| is pretty high. Just look at how bitter people have been about
| the NVidia RTX 4 series GPUs.
|
| I know someone who buys groceries from Target because it's
| significantly cheaper than other grocery stores in their area.
| This seems due to Target still implementing a kind of national
| pricing. Possible unexciting arbitrage opportunity there, I
| suppose?
| scythe wrote:
| It's funny being able to do mental arithmetic. I instinctively
| calculate the price per weight of almost every food product I
| buy, then I have to remind myself that most people don't do that.
| le-mark wrote:
| Non intuitively (to me at least) this somewhat explains the
| proliferation of the dollar stores. These stores sell name brand
| products packaged in small quantities at a relatively low price,
| but high margin. Making each location much more profitable than
| the big box stores. Especially since each location typically only
| has one or two employees on duty most of the time.
| noipv4 wrote:
| Tesla is removing Ultrasound distance sensors from Model 3 and Y
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/5/23388770/tesla-ultrasonic...
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| The "best by" date on items in UK supermarkets has been
| contracting since the first covid lockdown.
|
| Unless you buy frozen, you can't do the traditional "weekly shop"
| anymore unless you want a fridge full of expired food.
|
| Either the shortage of preservative packaging gasses is in full
| swing still or they're doing it to keep people shopping more
| regularly while hiking prices.
| babyshake wrote:
| I'm sure it also makes sense that for the same salary, workers
| should be provided fewer hours...right???
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I doubt this is new, probably happening during the low inflation
| times too.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| We've heard about shrinking products for decades. They must
| occasionally return to their original sizes, or they'd be
| really tiny right now.
|
| I've also been hearing that Cocoa Puffs are "Now! More
| Chocolatey!" at regular intervals my entire life. They must
| have not tasted like anything at all when I first ate them in
| the 70s.
| dunham wrote:
| Perhaps it's "more chocolatey" because they replaced the
| "chocolate" (which I believe has some regulations around
| actually containing cocoa butter) with "chocolatey" (which,
| by not claiming to be chocolate, can just be flavoring).
| babyshake wrote:
| Now featuring 100% chocolate! By which we mean synthetic
| flavors provided by "100% Chocolate Incorporated"
| ninth_ant wrote:
| This is absolutely not a new phenomenon in the slightest,
| companies across all industries are always messing with their
| products trying to reduce costs when possible. Sometimes it
| works, sometimes it doesn't.
|
| It may be more pronounced in times where consumers are more
| price-conscious, as companies try to raise/maintain profits
| without avoid raising prices -- hoping that budget minded
| consumers will accept this tradeoff more than in extravagant
| times.
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