How many of our consumers have noticed what’s been happening to the contents of many of the items we purchase everyday in the supermarkets?
You may see a recipe in your favorite cookbook calling for a pound can of salmon, but you won’t find one in the stores. For a while, the large can of salmon weight was 15 1/2 ounces, but now the contents are 14 3/4 ounces. Tuna fish that used to be sold in 7-ounce cans was sold for many years in 6 1/2-ounce cans. Then all at once, every tuna fish canner decided to change the contents to 6 1/8 ounces.
Have you noticed that your roll of toilet tissue runs out much more quickly? The rolls used to hold 400 sheets, then they dropped to 350, then 320 and now to 280 sheets.
The manufacturers are doing this so as to disguise price increases in their products without the public being made aware of what is happening. There is no other reason for packaging their products in these unusual amounts.
How about putting products in containers in multiples of one-fourth, one-half or one pound? How about packaging paper towels, toilet tissue and facial tissue in multiples of 50? This would make the public truly aware of what is happening to the cost of these products.
I admire the Kellogg Company for stating that it would have to raise the prices of its cereals due to increased costs. They could just as easily have dropped the contents of the cereal boxes by an ounce and who would have noticed.
