Food Shopping-Same Price, Less Product

You might not find that your grocery shopping tab isn't going up as dramatically as some reports say but you may notice that your bag of goods isn't as heavy as it used to be. The reason? Food retailers are maintaining their prices on some goods but lessening the product size. We found a few examples courtesy of "Consumer Reports" magazine.

—Kraft American cheese: 22 slices per packet instead of 24, down 8.3 percent

—Tropicana orange juice: 59 ounces per carton instead of 64, down 7.8 percent

—Classico pesto sauce: 8.1 ounces per jar instead of 10, down 19 percent

—Ivory dish detergent: 24 ounces per bottle instead of 30, down 20 percent

—Hebrew National hot dogs: 11 ounces per pack instead of 12, down 8.3 percent

“Companies often hide their handiwork when they shrink their packages,” said Consumer Reports, which is owned by the nonprofit watchdog Consumers Union. “Indenting the bottom of containers, making plastic wrappers thinner or whipping air into ice cream are a few subtle ways companies downsize their products.”

via At grocery stores, shoppers pay the same for less » Knoxville News Sentinel.

Smart marketing or deceptive packaging? You be the judge.