Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Tinier Bags, reports the New York Times. Because the prices of raw materials are going up, food companies have developed various ways of maintaining their profits by hiding the fact that they’re offering less than they did before.
Ms. Stauber, 33, said she began inspecting her other purchases, aisle by aisle. Many canned vegetables dropped to 13 or 14 ounces from 16; boxes of baby wipes went to 72 from 80; and sugar was stacked in 4-pound, not 5-pound, bags, she said.
Five or so years ago, Ms. Stauber bought 16-ounce cans of corn. Then they were 15.5 ounces, then 14.5 ounces, and the size is still dropping. “The first time I’ve ever seen an 11-ounce can of corn at the store was about three weeks ago, and I was just floored,” she said. “It’s sneaky, because they figure people won’t know.”
In every economic downturn in the last few decades, companies have reduced the size of some products, disguising price increases and avoiding comparisons on same-size packages, before and after an increase. Each time, the marketing campaigns are coy; this time, the smaller versions are “greener” (packages good for the environment) or more “portable” (little carry bags for the takeout lifestyle) or “healthier” (fewer calories). . . .
“Consumers are generally more sensitive to changes in prices than to changes in quantity,” John T. Gourville, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, said. “And companies try to do it in such a way that you don’t notice, maybe keeping the height and width the same, but changing the depth so the silhouette of the package on the shelf looks the same. Or sometimes they add more air to the chips bag or a scoop in the bottom of the peanut butter jar so it looks the same size.”
The article goes on to describe other techniques of the same deceptive kind. This is the sort of thing that makes a supporter of the market cringe — or ought to, though I’m afraid it doesn’t always. Of course these companies need to account for the rise in their costs, which means that the consumers will have to pay more for their products. No one expects the shareholders to sacrifice so the rest of us can pay less for our banana nut chocolate chip raisin rum mint swirl ice cream or southwestern jalapeño onion and salsa flavored tortilla chips, or even for our rice or flour or eggs. We have those things because someone has gone to the trouble of procuring them, turning them into a product, and then delivering it to a store where we can buy it, and they ought to be paid for doing so.
But tricking people into thinking they’re getting what they used to get for the old price is just lying. It’s tricksy, as Gollum would put it (and he would know). It may be a technique that passes without comment in many of the business schools and corporate marketing departments in America, but still, they shouldn’t be deceiving people into buying something thinking it’s another thing.
Yes, consumers are responsible for making wise choices and looking at things like the size of the package, though a gentleman would not take advantage of the simple, naive, and trusting. But still, you don’t lie to people just because they’re responsible for catching you when you do. Imagine if one of your children tried something like this, pulling a fast one on a sibling or neighbor in trading Halloween candy, say. No good parent would reward him for his shrewdness in anticipating the ignorance of his victims. You’d correct him, and punish him if necessary, and try to teach him the necessity of transparency and truthfulness, of making fair deals even if that means going out of his way to make sure the other person knows exactly what he’s giving up and what he’s getting, and doing so even when transparency might ruin the deal.
There is no difference here in what we ought to expect of the growing child and what we ought to expect of the grown-up corporation.
March 30th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
When I noticed that my beloved Libby’s pumpkin had been reduced from 16 ounces to 15 and l/2 ounces, I called the company to protest.
The person with whom I spoke explained that the “can manufacturers had changed the can size;” Libby’s was simply an innocent victim.
I asked if she actually expected me to believe that explanation. She had the good grace to laugh.
March 30th, 2011 | 5:57 pm
1/2 ounce? Oh, the horrors!
The point is that you noticed so no one pulled a fast one on you. As consumers, we have some responsibilities, too. Read the label. Is it really that hard? When did we stop being grownups?
I actually favor the move. Give me a little less. Perhaps I will eat a little less. And perhaps it will save me money as well.
March 30th, 2011 | 6:19 pm
Another thing that the companies do is to simultaneously raise the price just a little (folks generally don’t complain about a few cents) and reduce the size, but in a way that’s not noticeable. So, for instance, instead of getting a 6 oz. can of tuna for 69 cents, you get an identical-looking can which contains only 5 oz. but which now costs 79 cents. Most people won’t complain too much about the increase, thinking that the size has stayed the same.
So, Mark, deceptive business practices are fine so long as the consumer doesn’t catch on? And how the hell does it “save you money” if you’re spending the same amount, but getting less for it? Must be the new math.
March 30th, 2011 | 6:42 pm
There is another way to look at it.
By reducing the size rather than increasing the price, the seller is allowing the buyer still to purchase the same number of cans of corn per month, instead of fewer. Unless the buyer is regularly eating so carefully and/or close to the edge that an ounce off of a can of corn is going to result in an actual drop in the degree to which the family is being adequately nourished, this isn’t a bad thing.
I don’t know whether that reason, or “sneakiness”, actually is the reason that package sizes shrink, but I don’t have a a solid reason to prefer the sneaky explanation over an equally profit-oriented, but less malign, reason.
And whatever else it is, it isn’t “lying” if they’re printing the correct size on the label.
March 30th, 2011 | 7:51 pm
I am in 100% agreement with David Mills. Mark, do you do your own shipping? :P If you’d been buying a half-gallon carton of Tropicana Orange Juice every week for the past 20 years, you wasted a lot of time reading the label all those years to find out that they sneakily went from 64 to 59 ounces last year. One of the reasons we buy brand name items is trust. When we buy a familiar size of a familiar brand, we shouldn’t expect to have to read the label to see if the product has changed.
On the one hand, it would be rather odd to have a manufacturer advertise NEW! SMALLER SIZE! But on the other, they do seem to make every effort to make the change in size as difficult to detect as possible, and I think it amounts to deception.
March 30th, 2011 | 8:44 pm
Given the symbiotic (nay, incestuous) relationship between Big Gov’t & Big Biz it is in their mutual interest to hide food inflation — people are already mad enough about the price of gas and heating oil which can’t be hidden.
March 30th, 2011 | 8:48 pm
I agree with Mark and pentamom.
Studies show that the size portions (in fast foods, drinks, etc.) have increased dramatically. Furthermore, it appears that people who eat off of smaller plates eat less. So this is a good thing, “naturally” encouraging people to do what they ought to be doing anyway: eating less.
March 30th, 2011 | 9:04 pm
I had to read the comment from “Mark” twice to understand that my homely little anecdote had generated such hostility.
I understand difference of perspective. My problem with the Libby’s pumpkin, however, had to do with recipes that had been calibrated for the original amount.
In any event the main point of my post was that Libby’s had an explanation prepared for concerned customers and that explanation was preposterous.
It did help that the customer service person understood that no “grown up” customer would believe such silliness and we enjoyed our laugh.
March 30th, 2011 | 9:04 pm
That’s not “tricksy”, it’s just marketing with a healthy dose of psychology. Most people don’t understand the concept of inflation to the extent where they realize how it factors into price shifts they can observe. Case in point: elderly people who talk about how they remember “back when milk used to be 25¢”. It’s not just that the food costs more, it’s that the value of a dollar changed.
If companies simply changed their prices to match the rate of inflation, people would protest, not understanding why prices are increasing year-over-year. Balancing price increases with subtle decreases in unit size slows down the price increases to a point where they’re less noticeable to the consumer, who generally wouldn’t understand why the price was increasing.
March 30th, 2011 | 9:06 pm
This brings to mind a particular market – OTC pharmaceuticals and supplements – where doing the ‘honest’ thing would be irresponsible to the shareholders.
OTC acne treatments are generally formulated so strong they can actually increase acne through irritation, and nobody needs 500% of their RDA for a vitamin C supplement. (Actually, most people don’t need vitamin C supplements at all, but I digress.) The problem is that people want to buy the biggest and best.
A company in one of these markets that tried to be responsible to the customer by only giving them as much product as they need would be ignoring the fact that that isn’t what the market wants. The customer would go elsewhere in their desire to see a higher percentage of the active ingredient on their OTC meds and the shareholders would wind up losing.
March 30th, 2011 | 9:26 pm
I know they are reacting to surveys which indicate people are cost sensitive, but “subtle” reductions in quantity can only be taken so far, eventually you notice and the way it’s going they might as well start merchandising Entenmann’s cakes as pancakes. I open the box and what used to be a nice chunk of cake is now as much air as cake . “Hello in there, is anybody home”? Time to get back to Twinkies I guess though they might be jiving me too
March 30th, 2011 | 9:49 pm
1/2 ounce? Oh, the horrors!
The point is that you noticed so no one pulled a fast one on you. As consumers, we have some responsibilities, too.
Yes, all people have a responsibility to not be lied to.
But trust is the glue that holds civilization together. When you can trust the people you do business with to not deliberately deceive or attempt to defraud you, you can free up the resources you would spend on verifying each transaction, and increased economic specialization becomes possible.
I can spend more of my energy worrying about what I do, and you can spend more energy worrying about what you do.
It’s a competitive advantage for the nation that can cultivate such trust.
It is the difference between growth and collapse.
I now have to seek out a farmer to buy a cow from once a year because I can’t trust the grocery store to sell me honest meat. They’ll use deceptive packaging and they’ll nuke it so that old, nasty meat looks fresh (until you open the package and get hit by the smell). So now I have to maintain a freezer. Think about this: regressing to an earlier way of doing business is now economically smarter for me, as a consumer, because as our corporations got bigger and “more efficient”, I stopped being able to trust them – and I am by no means the only person worried about trusting the food supply.
Honesty matters.
Dishonesty matters.
We all have an obligation to watch out for ourselves, but that’s not an excuse for deliberately attempting to defraud us.
March 30th, 2011 | 9:53 pm
If companies simply changed their prices to match the rate of inflation, people would protest, not understanding why prices are increasing year-over-year
Free market philosophies assume good information.
Good information is required to make good choices.
Anything that deliberately distorts information – so as to deceive people into buying something under false pretenses – is not good.
Not good for the markets, or for the nation that tolerates it (which pays the ultimate price in lost trust and reduced cooperation).
Not good for the consumers, who are either angered at the intended deception (if they notice) or defrauded (if they don’t).
Not good for the company, because even if they manage to get away without direct punishment (which is by no means guaranteed), any business that is making its money by peddling dishonesty instead of peddling a good product at a fair price, is going to be vulnerable to competitors who can make a “competitive advantage” out of basic trustworthiness.
Trust and reputation is a lot harder to acquire than profit is.
March 30th, 2011 | 10:28 pm
@Blake -
I disagree that the practice is dishonest. Your assumption is that the intention is to mislead, but I don’t see how that’s the case. The manufacturer, facing a cost increase, is choosing to slightly lower their unit size rather than pass the price increase on to the consumer.
The result is that the consumer winds up with roughly the same number of glasses of orange juice at the end of the day, and doesn’t get shocked by a price increase. (Which could be because he doesn’t understand inflationary price increases, or could simply be because people tend to be more sensitive to price than quantity.)
Treating marketing as a transparent, intellectual discourse between buyer and seller is great in theory, but just doesn’t fly in the real world. Nobody is going to the grocery store with a chart of estimated inflation, comparing price histories and unit sizes. They’re trying to get the most bang for their buck as quickly as possible, and most of their decisions are going to wind up being based on gut instinct.
A corporation that doesn’t base their marketing around that fact is, quite frankly, not being good stewards of their shareholders’ money.
March 31st, 2011 | 5:47 am
I disagree that the practice is dishonest. Your assumption is that the intention is to mislead, but I don’t see how that’s the case.
Yes, I do believe the intention is to mislead.
And I wonder why so many people are so eager to defend corporations that steal nickels and dimes from their customers.
Be aware that, in arguing that it’s normal and natural to “cushion” consumers from the “shock” of a raised price via fraud, you might as well be hanging a sign around your neck saying “I believe there’s nothing wrong with a little theft, as long as it’s petty and the victim can afford it”.
Just so you know.
March 31st, 2011 | 6:56 am
Imagine packaging a product and writing the quantity of the product and its price on that package.
The bastards.
March 31st, 2011 | 7:35 am
“But tricking people into thinking they’re getting what they used to get for the old price is just lying.”
This is not “tricksy” as you suppose. If the package is clearly marked with the amount being purchased and people know the price that their paying, that is not lying. Lying would be where the amount and/or the price is different than what actually is indicated. It is up to the consumer to be aware and not the responsibility of the “grown up corporation” to protect us from ourselves.
March 31st, 2011 | 8:40 am
I’m mostly in agreement with those who don’t think this an exercise in deception by the producers. There’s nothing sacred about the size of a can of whatever. There’s also nothing sacred about the price of a product. To deal with inflation or simply increased costs, the producer has many choices. One is to simply increase the price of the existing product. That would generate a similar list of comments about how the producer was gouging or gypping the consumer. We already see this for oil, which can’t reduce the package size. For whatever reason, people take to reduced package sizes easier than to increased sizes, even if the resulting unit price was the same. Psychology being what it is, that may flip in the future. Then you’ll see constant packaging and increasing prices.
Regulation attempts to keep the comparisons easier by, for example, requiring the posting of unit prices or specifying serving sizes. Here, I think the results get more interesting. As the definitions used by humans and hence government regulation are, shall we say, fuzzy, you get oddities like candy bars marked as two servings (and they’re not even Twix bars!) in order to get the calorie count down to consumer acceptable.
God gave us a fuzzy world. I rather prefer that to being a predictable automaton.
March 31st, 2011 | 9:05 am
Thank you all for the interesting, and diverse, responses. The critical ones have tended to convince me of my original point, especially since many of them simply bail out on the moral question with reference to “marketing” or “the real world” and what companies have to do to succeed.
The very last example is a good example. With an appeal to “fuzziness,” the analytical value of which isn’t clear to me, we get the example of changing the serving size “in order to get the calorie count down to consumer accepta[bility].” In other words, the package is revised to trick consumers into thinking they’re getting something other than what they are really getting. Which is lying. Sophisticated, or tricksy, lying, but still lying.
Other respondents mention the consumer’s responsibility to pay attention to such things, which I mentioned in my post. Of course he should. But that isn’t relevant to the question of the morality of attempts to mislead them. Few people who argue this would want to live with such an approach to human relations in their personal lives, and most would (I hope) feel such an attitude a serious moral flaw in their children or their neighbors or themselves.
March 31st, 2011 | 9:16 am
“No one expects the shareholders to sacrifice”
Oh. Well, that settles it.
March 31st, 2011 | 9:38 am
“And I wonder why so many people are so eager to defend corporations that steal nickels and dimes from their customers. ”
I don’t disagree that they would have more integrity if they made it a bit more obvious that people were getting less today for the same amount of money than they did yesterday.
But “stealing” is ridiculous. People are getting the amount of stuff that they pay for. They are voluntarily purchasing the product. Even if they are arguably overcharging, overcharging is not “stealing” by any rational definition of the word, so long as the buyer knows the amount of money he is paying and can choose whether or not to pay it.
March 31st, 2011 | 9:54 am
This is not “tricksy” as you suppose. If the package is clearly marked with the amount being purchased and people know the price that their paying, that is not lying.
Quick show of hands: Who here believes that companies would continue to do even this if they weren’t required to by law?
March 31st, 2011 | 10:20 am
What should the corporation do that would not constitute tricksiness when its prices for raw materials go up? That is, why is raising prices more honest than reducing sizes? I myself don’t pay attention to exact prices — a few cents on a can, or more on larger products, would escape my notice. I probably pay more attention to quantity or size. So am I tricked if the product doesn’t announce “new higher price”?
March 31st, 2011 | 10:24 am
Virtually all marketing is manipulation of the customer in some manner. Remember way, way back when shampoos were first marketed as “pH Balanced?” At the risk of being condescending, there was probably less than 5% of the market for those shampoos that knew what “pH Balanced” meant. And yet it was a major marketing proposition. And I’ll never forget the intern at Kraft who had a “great summer experience” by test marketing Philly Cream Cheese to youngsters by making it with different colors. She said the program generated significant lift (pink was best). So I asked her how she enjoyed manipulating children. She never forgave me.
In marketing it was ever thus. The spectrum is from delivering facts…to manipulation …to deception….to fraud (lying). Where does the consumer draw the line? Where does the marketing professional?
On the flip side, anyone ever been to Costco? You can by grapes practically by the bushel there. The manipulation is almost in reverse. You think you’re getting a great deal on grapes, because they’re so inexpensive relative to the grocery store. Until you throw half of them away because no way our family could finish the bushel before they spoil… Which means not only may you lose the economic benefit of “buying in bulk” but you engage in the moral transgression of waste.
March 31st, 2011 | 12:46 pm
Let me make my points through a classic example. Toothpaste originally came with a restricted nozzle, as you only need a pea sized bit of the stuff to brush your teeth. Market experiments demonstrated that an unrestricted nozzle resulted in more toothpaste being sold. So, are companies (every toothpaste company that I know currently selling) somehow deceiving their customers by doing so? If so, how come the companies are still doing it after decades? Wouldn’t the consumer have decided that this was a lie and stopped buying? Apparently not. So what’s going on here? Are the companies evil while the consumers are just complacent? Why aren’t we all still using baking soda which is much less expensive?
I suggest the answers can be found in human psychology, which is a fuzzy science if ever there was one. I think to go looking for them in moral condemnation says more about the seeker than the subject.
Now, I don’t think all companies are good or neutral. I think there are ones that commit crimes of various sorts, some of which never get caught. Reducing size isn’t one of crimes.
(And yes, I’ve read both Sinclair Lewis and Vance Packard.)
March 31st, 2011 | 12:53 pm
“Few people who argue this would want to live with such an approach to human relations in their personal lives, and most would (I hope) feel such an attitude a serious moral flaw in their children or their neighbors or themselves.”
There’s a ‘Leave It To Beaver’ episode where the Beav, knowing ahead of time via overhearing a water-crew conversation that the water is going to be shut off in his neighborhood on a hot summer day, fills up several bucket, jars, etc., ahead of time. After the water is shut off, he goes around selling the water to folks who did not have his “insider” knowledge.
His dad finds out, and Beaver is chided for taking advantage of his friends and neighbors. That seems to be what is at issue here. Not ‘stealing’ so much, but manipulation and taking advantage of someone else’s lack of awareness. That such behavior is somehow excusable because it happens to be a corporation doing it for the profit motive seems to me to be quite wrongheaded, when as David says we’d hardly tolerate in our neighbors or our children or ourselves. As usual, Ward Cleaver was right.
March 31st, 2011 | 1:07 pm
Simple solution: Buy fewer prepared foods. Buy in bulk where you can see the weight and the price. Fancy oatmeal by brand name can be around $15 per pound. In bulk, it’s less than $1 per pound.
I wonder if the “institutional size” cans have been reduced as well – you know, the supersized ones you get at big box stores?
March 31st, 2011 | 1:54 pm
“Quick show of hands: Who here believes that companies would continue to do even this if they weren’t required to by law?”
And this matters how in the case where they are doing it, and we are deciding whether or not it is “lying” to do it?
I haven’t yet seen anyone here argue that processed food manufacturers are paragons of virtue. The question is whether changing the size of your package is dishonest.
And really? Is that what this is? A contention that changing the size of a package is “dishonest?” According to what actual ethical system, as opposed to a vague sense that if the corporation were your friend he’d cut you a break?
March 31st, 2011 | 1:57 pm
“That such behavior is somehow excusable because it happens to be a corporation doing it for the profit motive seems to me to be quite wrongheaded, when as David says we’d hardly tolerate in our neighbors or our children or ourselves. ”
Why do we have the same expectations for a company that puts food in a can and puts it on a store shelf, that we have for our family members and neighbors?
There is a level of “above and beyond” consideration that we properly expect from our family members and the neighbors we’re on good terms with — I’m not sure which moral code teaches us to expect that from everyone we do business with on every level, and teaches us to extend more than simple honesty (which is covered by making the true price and true quantity available for all to see) to others who are that distance from us.
March 31st, 2011 | 2:05 pm
Rob,
I don’t think your example is any simpler than the food question. What did Dad think Beaver should have done? Gone around and informed all the neighbors? If it was a large area without water that would be a real chore — was he obligated to do it? Or should he have collected what he could and given it away? Is there a good criterion for who would deserve to get it? Maybe he was obliged to collect enough water for the whole neighborhood. Or would just putting away enough for himself and use it without telling anybody be more ethical? I don’t think the answer is obvious; do you?
(Nowadays I guess you could just send an email to your neighborhood listserve.)
March 31st, 2011 | 2:50 pm
See if “store brands” have shrunk their package sizes like name brands”. The supermarket where we do most of our shopping kept selling its brand of ice cream in a two quart size after national brands shrunk theirs to 48 ounces, but it eventually shrunk, too.
March 31st, 2011 | 3:03 pm
Chris,
That’s likely because a number of “store brand” products are simply re-packaged national brands. Some, but by no means all.
March 31st, 2011 | 3:13 pm
~~A contention that changing the size of a package is “dishonest?” According to what actual ethical system, as opposed to a vague sense that if the corporation were your friend he’d cut you a break?~~
The dishonesty lies not in changing the size, but in changing it while leading people to believe that it hasn’t changed.
Judy, the ethical question addressed by the show wasn’t with what he should have done, but with the fact that what he did do was ethically questionable. The moral of the story was “Don’t take advantage of your friends and neighbors.” It was not a crash-course in the economics of water distribution.
March 31st, 2011 | 4:17 pm
I keep seeing terms such as “dishonest” and “deceptiv” (and their ilk), but this is anything but. If the container holds 5 oz. of product and is labeled accordingly, then there’s no dishonesty involved. (Besides, the law would hold them accountable for false labeling.)
Caveat emptor and all that, folks. Stop assuming and start paying attention. I noticed this trend years ago and was fooled by none of it. It was my choice to buy the reduced size or switch to another brand.
In short, grow up, everyone.
March 31st, 2011 | 5:10 pm
Rob,
My point is that every choice is ethically questionable. Just saying what he did is questionable doesn’t solve anything because he had to do something when he found out the information about the water, and each choice has problems. Even doing nothing would have been making an ethical choice. What he did might be better than some other choices in that he enabled some people to have water who wouldn’t otherwise have had it.
March 31st, 2011 | 5:47 pm
Judy, that’s the same argument that defenders of price-gouging use. But I think you’re reading far too much into it, like over-analyzing an Aesop’s fable.
It’s really very simple: good folks don’t take advantage of their neighbors’ lack of knowledge, or even their mistaken lack of attention. Why do we assume that doing such is fine for businessmen?
“If the container holds 5 oz. of product and is labeled accordingly, then there’s no dishonesty involved”
Perhaps not. But it seems awfully manipulative to keep the can the same size, while increasing the price and reducing the amount of product. Caveat emptor does not give the seller carte blanche to manipulate and exploit the buyer’s ignorance, provided that manipulation and exploitation is legal. What you are saying is that “do unto others” does not apply when it comes to business.
March 31st, 2011 | 6:44 pm
“The dishonesty lies not in changing the size, but in changing it while leading people to believe that it hasn’t changed.”
The only “Leading people to believe” something is failing to advertise the change. Saying nothing does not make you morally culpable for what other people assume.
Like I said, if the corporation actually were your friend, you might expect them to cut you a break and go to the *extra* effort to point out the change, *in addition to* clearly labeling the package as such. Since no such relationship exists, a failure to redundantly inform you of something that is plain for anyone to see is not “dishonest” by any fair use of that term.
March 31st, 2011 | 6:47 pm
And as someone else pointed out, there are two options here — reduce package size, or increase price.
If they reduce package size by some single-digit percentage, in most cases, a package will go nearly as far as it did before. If they increase the price, I can’t buy as many packages. Which actually hurts me more?
March 31st, 2011 | 6:51 pm
“What you are saying is that “do unto others” does not apply when it comes to business.”
No, what I’m saying is that I don’t find it reasonable to “have them do unto me” anything more than printing an accurate price and an accurate weight on a package lest I call them “dishonest.” I certainly would have them do that appropriate level of honesty unto me; I would consider it asking something beyond my rights to insist that they inform me of something *twice* so that I don’t have to take the responsibility of knowing what I’m paying for.
March 31st, 2011 | 11:51 pm
No, what I’m saying is that I don’t find it reasonable to “have them do unto me” anything more than printing an accurate price and an accurate weight on a package lest I call them “dishonest.”
To me, the relevant point is that there does appear to be ample evidence of intent to deceive.
That makes it attempt to defraud.
I don’t believe it should be illegal. But making something illegal and objecting to it – loudly – are two very different things.
April 1st, 2011 | 12:47 am
This all actually started with coffee, back in the late 80s believe it or not. Coffee prices started soaring (this is all pre-Starbucks) due to some crop failure or some such, and the one pound can went to 14 oz while leaving the price the same. I know, because I was stocking groceries, and I put the first new can of under filled coffee on our shelves. It felt – wrong. People had the illusion the price went down – or didn’t go up. But, it did. I kept thinking that the cans would go back to full fill when the price of coffee dropped, but those marketers knew they had something, and there you go.
FB
April 1st, 2011 | 10:08 am
“… if in a particular society the pursuit of external goods were to become dominant, the concept of the virtues might suffer first attrition and then perhaps something near total effacement (although simulacra might abound).
We are still far from “total effacement” of virtue. The problem though seems to be slow erosion of the idea that virtue matters – even when or even especially in matters involving profit.
As David Mills was at pains to explain, small things do have consequences. The damage may seem almost absurdly trivial. But the fact that this post attracted so much interest shows that it is not.
Customers are not incapable of understanding need for increases in price. In the produce department, signs are often posted stating that weather conditions have caused prices to rise. This indicates respect for the customer’s ability to understand basic economics. One either pays the increased price or purchases something else.
When on the other hand a can or container is subtly adjusted to look the same while the amount of product is reduced and when no notice whatsoever is provided, a customer might be forgiven for being surprised.
And when said customer calls and respectfully asks for an explanation and one that would not fool a child is offered, that customer will almost certainly form a different opinion of the company.
Nothing will seem to have changed. In my particular case, I still purchase Libby’s pumpkin, Tropicana orange juice, etc. But the former level of trust and a kind of comfort that does matter in human relations has been lost.
In great matters we do understand and value behavior and speech that is straightforward (“free from evasion or obscurity”). This is no less important in small matters; no less important that is if we intend to preserve “the cultivation of truthfulness, justice, and courage … [qualities that are] potential stumbling block[s] to becoming rich, powerful, or famous …”.
April 1st, 2011 | 1:45 pm
Bangwell Putt
You way overanalyze this. How is it evasive or obfusive to say that this 5 oz. container of corn contains 5 oz. of corn?
As I said earlier, stop assuming and pay attention. Anyone who shops at the store and buys a product without looking at either the volume/weight or the price shouldn’t be the one doing the shopping.
Most of these food producers are publicly owned, and they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit. That seems to be forgotten in this discussion.
April 1st, 2011 | 2:51 pm
“Most of these food producers are publicly owned, and they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit.”
Yes, even if it requires duplicitous business practices. When it’s all about the profit, ethics goes out the window. Big Agra knows all about this, being old hands at it.
April 1st, 2011 | 3:02 pm
Rob G
Again what is duplicitous about saying this 5 oz. container of corn contains 5 oz. of corn?
No one will answer the question.
Everyone is upset because they’re careless when they shop and think it’s the manufacturers’ fault. I’ve said it once and I’ll keep saying it: stop assuming and start paying attention.
April 1st, 2011 | 3:58 pm
Re comment from “Buzz”: The point is that customers and corporations have responsibilities toward one another.
Yes, the customer must pay attention. And the corporation must structure packaging to make that as simple as possible. Every package should not have to be carefully inspected for subtle changes in content.
But this discussion is about much more than one or two ounces of product and packages designed to hide any difference. It is about trust and civility among neighbors and fellow citizens including the corporations in matters large and small.
MacIntyre is making the point that there is more to life than “maximizing profit”.
April 1st, 2011 | 4:02 pm
As I said above, the duplicity lies in doing as much as possible, in a “tricksy” way, to maintain the illusion that the container or whatever has the same amount of product it always did, when it actually doesn’t. This is in effect capitalizing on the ignorance and/or good faith of the consumer, and as such is morally questionable.
If you disagree, remind me never to buy a used car from you.
April 1st, 2011 | 4:15 pm
Rob G.
Are you implying I’m a liar? If I were to sell you a used car, I’ll tell you exactly what you’re getting, and I’ll let you test drive it. When Del Monte sells me a can of corn, they tell me exactly what’s in it.
By the way, is the manufacturer duplicitous and “tricksy” when he shows the food prepared in optimum fashion, all juicy and delicious, when in fact it’s nothing like that on your plate? Don’t you buy it anyway, knowing that your breaded chicken is not going to come out like in the photo? In a different retail category, what about the company that puts a small widget in a larger box to better catch your eye on the shelf? Or the bright packaging for an everyday product?
Just where does marketing end and “tricksy” begin?
An alert consumer can never be tricked.
April 1st, 2011 | 8:16 pm
An alert consumer can never be tricked.
Which is why people like David are right to run articles like this one – because word of mouth and loss of reputation are part of what keeps corporations from attempting to mistreat consumers.
April 2nd, 2011 | 1:28 am
Nicely put, Blake.
“An alert consumer can never be tricked.”
Really? Going back to used cars, how many buyers got hosed before CarFax came along? How about “high fiber” breads which contain wood shavings, sawdust, basically, but which say “cellulose” in the ingredients? In other words, how alert, exactly, do you have to be?
April 2nd, 2011 | 9:01 am
“Markets and Morals,” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (First Things, August/September 2000 issue) is an excellent resource for those who might want to better understand why this subject has generated such interest.
Another resource is the passage from Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue” previously quoted: “The cultivation of truthfulness, justice, and courage is a potential stumbling block to becoming rich, powerful, or famous. … We should therefore expect that if in a particular society the pursuit of external goods were to become dominant, the concept of the virtues might suffer first attrition and then perhaps something near total effacement (although simulacra might abound.)
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