The Ethics of Less: The Incredible Shrinking Cereal Box
DLB reflects on the design of portions and packaging due to the rising price of food.
Due to increased fuel costs, the price of food is going up, but instead of charging customers more, some manufacturers are simply giving customers less. For instance, an 11oz. box of cereal that once cost $3.59 is now an 8.7oz box that costs the same.
This begs the question: Why wouldn’t they just increase the price and be done with it?
I can think of two reasons which relate to two kinds of people: those who fixate on price and those who fixate on volume.
If price matters more, then people who can’t afford the increased cost might stop buying the product. Therefore, by pricing a smaller amount at the old price, the manufacturer helps keep its customers.
On the other hand, if volume matters, smaller packages mean people can only buy less than they want. As a result, they might have to buy more to satisfy themselves. For example, let’s say your family is used to consuming a 24oz. box of cheese crackers every week. But now you can only a buy 20oz. box. Therefore, you may have to purchase more 20oz. boxes or buy more often. This costs considerably more than the price of the original portion. Again, the manufacturer comes out pretty well.
It’s interesting to note that research seems to show that a significant number (at least half) of people don’t want less; they would rather pay the increased cost for the original amount. Therefore, shrinking does not seem like an optimal solution for customer satisfaction—it seems like it benefits the manufacturer more.
