Shopper beware!

[Clair]

The consumers' magazine «60 millions de consommateurs» highlights the crafty measures used by some food manufacturers to trick consumers into paying more for the same products.

Article in French here and in google-English here.

[Benjamin]

Not particularly a hidden price increase but we are becoming convinced that certain supermarkets locally are slicing cold and cooked meats thicker. The more you take at the till the more you spread your overheads.

[Cat]

I liked the way that a-certain-biscuit-maker said that they had spent 2 years researching how to make their biscuits healthier and less calorific, and then admitted that, yes, they had just made them smaller [Www]

[Clair]

Funnily enough, we bought a pack of 5 of these for Mr Clair (who has a very very sweet tooth) on special offer at Géant this week. They are 300g each... How good of them to think of Mr Clair's health! [:D]

Didn't Mars do the same thing with the Mars bar a while back?

[Anton Redman]

At least they have not reached UK standards of how much water they inject into Ham and Bacon.

Best story I heard was of one of the boutique retail consultancies who successfully sold a method of increasing consumption and hence sales of a particular brand of toilet paper by 50%. I believe they suggested the manufacturer went from two-ply to three ply. 

[Suze01]

I use a Nivea compact powder and foundation combined when I haven't got a bit of a suntan.  The one I had last winter was nearly finished so bought another.  They've changed the packaging to a much more flimsey product and put the price up by about 2€ from just uner 10€ to just under 12€.  To cap it all, when I got home and compared the packs the new one only has 9g of product compared to 12g in last years pack [:@]

[plod]

One euro 30 per gram - that's more expensive than truffles!

[Judith]

It's been happening for several years - often you only notice when you put an old packet against new one, then you see that not only has the packet changed size, it's capacity has as well!  Often sold by manufacturers as "improved and greener packaging" but hiding the cost element quite nicely, thank you!

[PaulT]

I went in to the UKs largest retailer the other day and on the shelf orange squash with a price ticket:

80p - 2 for £1.80!

Also look at the price per unit what ever for small and large packs of things, often the largest is more costly playing on people thinking that the larger is overall cheaper.

And about a month ago a large pack of wine gums was actually cheaper than the small one.

So be careful out there

Paul

[Callie]

[quote user="P2"]Also look at the price per unit what ever for small and large packs of things, often the largest is more costly playing on people thinking that the larger is overall cheaper.[/quote]

Yup - We've noticed that too.  We found 2 x 25g pkts of cashews was cheaper than 1 x 50g.

I now ALWAYS check the price per kg to see whether I'm being conned or not !

[dave21478]

I noticed this in SuperU the other day. Le Bon Paris ham is sold in packs of 2, 4, 6 and 8 slices. The 8-pack is not the best value. The price per kilo drops as you go up from 2 to 4 to 6, but the 8-pack works out poorer value than the 6-pack.

 

[Clair]

Absolutely right Dave! I worked that one out too.

Weird though... [8-)]