6 Subtle Ways You're Getting Screwed at the Grocery Store
If you are a huge manufacturer selling units in the tens of millions, shaving just a penny or two off of each bag of cookies or can of cocktail weenies can make a huge difference on your bottom line. So while we'd like to think the free market is all about selling good quality at a good price, the difference between profit and bankruptcy can in fact lie in the seller's ability to screw you an ounce or a nickel at a time.
Their little tricks are everywhere, and believe us when we say they add up. We're talking about things like ...
#6.
Bottom Dimples (And Other Sneaky Packaging Tricks)
If you haven't discovered it for yourself already, it's probably because you're not a clumsy oaf and have never dropped a jar of peanut butter on the ground. Because if you had, you might have observed that the bottom of that jar looked as if someone with a tiny fist punched it:
The Ripoff:
That sneaky dimple was put there for one reason: to put about two fewer ounces of peanut butter in the jar without the customer noticing. But manufacturers are keeping the prices the same, and sometimes even raising them. And peanut butter makers aren't the only ones pulling this shit, either.
You can't even trust the Jelly cartel.
A toilet roll might have the same number of sheets, but the sheets are an inch shorter, or worse, thinner. Cereal boxes are getting thinner while remaining the same height and width, to give the illusion of containing the same amount. A Hershey's chocolate bar has gotten an ounce and a half lighter yet sports the word "Giant," presumably because Hershey's thinks chocolate lovers are morons.
To be fair, she is only a foot tall.
And until the masses rise up with pitchforks and torches demanding their ounces of peanut butter/chocolate/toilet paper back, we're just going to have to keep on taking it.
#5.
Tricking You Into Paying More (For Something It Cost the Same to Make)
One of the easiest ways to grab a little extra cash from poor schmucks like us is to charge more for products that don't cost more (or maybe even cost less) to make. Take sunscreen, for example. Even people who spend 95 percent of their time on the Internet need to get outside to buy a taco every now and then. And when they do, you'd better believe sunscreen is a must for their soft, supple skin.
Let's say you're the one going on a big outdoor adventure, maybe urban Rollerblading or what have you, so you go shopping for some sun protection. The first thing you notice is that the SPF protection ranges from 5 to 70. Naturally, you want to buy the hell out of the 70 so you can tell the sun to go fuck itself.
So hard.
Chances are that 70 SPF sunscreen costs more than the other, but that's OK, because it's protecting you more, right? You take it to the register, hand over your money and slap that lotion on your skin, feeling superior knowing you just bested a star.
Yeah, that'll keep the cancer at bay.
The Ripoff:
Unlike an encounter with a high-end prostitute, you shouldn't have to pay more for a higher SPF sunscreen, because lotion is lotion and it all costs the same to make, no matter what level of protection it offers you. But sellers assume that once a consumer sees the bigger number on the SPF protection, he'll be willing to shell out more. And they're right.
In this case, we're talking about a few dollars that could add up big time in the long run. Because some consumers might not buy the better protection for their kids in the interest of saving a dollar, and those kids could be vulnerable to malignant melanoma later in life, which is why one British retailer announced it would no longer charge more for the higher-SPF lotions. BURN!
The British Isles go through nearly four bottles of sunscreen every year.
It's the same thing with dairy products that have been whipped for fluffiness, such as yogurt and cream cheese. You think you're paying more for a decadent, creamy treat, but you're actually getting less of the product than you would if you just bought the regular version, on account of the fact that the extra creaminess is due to the addition of a whole bunch of decadent, creamy air.
Hey, speaking of which ...
#4.
Bags Half Full of Air
It should come as no surprise that Americans are super in love with potato chips. We're so in love with them, in fact, that in 2009 we spent $2 billion more on chips than the federal government's entire budget for researching and developing new sources of energy. Which is probably OK, since any new sources of energy would have probably just been spent driving our fat asses back to the store for more chips.
FEED OUR HOLES, SHOP-MAN.
The point is we can safely assume that just about everyone reading this article has opened a bag of chips and discovered that the greasy bag of salty goodness was just as full of nondelicious nothing as it was with food. And if there's anything we hate more than paying for water, it's paying for chipified air.
The Ripoff:
In the food industry, the practice of only halfway-filling containers with actual food is called "slack fill." Chip-makers want a cushion of air around their products as protection, because nothing sucks more than getting a bag full of smooshed chip bits, except maybe getting a bag full of empty, which is what it seems like sometimes.
What the actual fuck?
The problem is that even though the FDA allows for some air space as food protection, sneaky manufacturers have been more than willing to abuse the system by halfway filling comically large bags with their products. So you think you're getting a big ol' bag of goodness when you're really not getting all that much ...
... and half a bag of chips.
In fact, the problem is so bad that several groups have appealed to the FDA to crack down on the chronic over-slack fillers -- not just because consumers are getting cheated, but because all that extra packaging is killing a lot of trees to basically package nothing.
I don't mind the half-filled bags. It gives me room to fold it down and clip it shut. As for milk, I could get it right off the manufacturing line and it would still smell bad to me. So, I don't rely on the date, I ask a family member to sniff my milk.
ReplyEating some of the stuff when you open it does too.
Just a note about the expired medication in #2, dont throw it in the rubbish, I think you can bring it to your pharmacy and have them dispose of it properly, its pretty dangerous to have all sorts of medication going in the trash, and thats what we do here anyway, not sure about America. Great Article, really interesting!
ReplyThese captions are the best, I swear. But anyway:
ReplyI've never really had too much of a problem with the bags full of air until recently, because it's gotten so much worse. I opened my bag of Cap'n Crunch and half the cereal wasn't there. I got chips with my sandwich at the deli and I kid you not, the bag was only a quarter full. I got 4 palm fulls.
I'm all for having the companies survive so I keep enjoying the food, but they need to stop wasting all this packaging. I'll pay more for more chips if it keeps the companies alive. I'll deal with smaller bags. But this is getting ridiculous.
This is lame, all the 'tricks' arent even tricks. Just go by the PPO (Price Per Ounce) and it doesnt matter. Dimpled cans, well you can see you are buying 8oz of BP as oppose to 10. Filled bags of chips, again you know how much is going to be there. expiration dates, everyone tempts the milk or product beyond the date to find out its still good, not alot of people just throw something away before bravely testing it.
ReplyYeah....they do. Seen too many people live by the numbers. Quite frankly, if it's not growing stuff and it's been packaged and stored right, I'll probably still eat it.
The problem with complaining about 'sneaky packaging' is that a lot of it is a survival tactic. Because of issues like high levels of competition and the incredibly short shelf life of the product, the margin for profit in food industries is notoriously thin.
ReplyCosts of common ingredients (milk, salt, and especially sugar, to name a few) can vary wildly, but consumers refuse to (knowingly) pick up the cost of that. If cookies cost $1 one week, and $1.50 the next, people simply won't buy them even if it's explained that the price of sugar doubled that month.
Lowering package amounts is the easiest way to keep from taking a loss without losing consumers, and it allows companies to operate in a tough business. Not to say it isn't abused (excessive air in chip bags, for example), but it's necessary to some degree.
I am a self proclaimed chipoholic and every half full chip bag I've ever looked had it's ass covered by the manufacturers statement: "Bags are filled by weight. Product may have settled during shipping." Basically the manufacturer saying "Hey! it was full when we filled it. Not our f*****g fault everything settles to the bottom and half your chips were crushed."
ReplyIt's still full. Just not full of chips.
RE: #6 - "That sneaky dimple was put there for one reason"...that concave dip in the bottom of jars and containers is called a Punt and is actually for structural integrity purposes; it's the same reason why bottles and cans of all shapes and sizes also have this feature: it makes them stronger and less likely to burst if dropped or impacted than a flat-bottomed can, jar or bottle.
ReplyCans will still bust if dropped just right. That was an ungodly mess, too, because they also explode if dropped just right.
FEED MY HOLE, SHOP-MAN!
ReplyThank you, I have a new catchphrase.
Mayfield milk really DOES go bad on the date stamped on the cap. I've actually tossed out milk that I bought on that date. Now I avoid same-day dates.
ReplyMy mum always tells me that stuff that's a couple of days past the expiration date is okay, and she's right too. She nearly always gets the stuff that's been marked down because of this and this saves her money.
ReplyThe half-filled bags really piss me off though.
"6 Subtle Ways You're Getting Screwed at the Grocery Store"
ReplyI tend to get screwed in a brothel and there's nothing subtle about it.
Gonna start using way less detergent.
ReplyAbsolute same thing is true with shampoo.
Arbitrary expiration dates save me so much money, because stores mark down their items that are about to "expire," so I get the same thing for half the price, and almost no difference in actual taste, none at all in safety.
ReplyWhen you're a student at uni, you learn that sell-by dates and measuring washing detergent mean f**k all xD Everything has to last as long as possible, and if you're sensible and don't forget these things once you're making more cash, it should stick.
ReplyEven worse than adding water to meat is "gassing." That's where the store pumps carbon dioxide into the meat case when the customers aren't around. The CO2 reacts with the meat and prevents oxygen from bonding with it, so it doesn't turn brown as it ages the way it would if it weren't gassed. So gassed meat always looks bright red, fooling you into thinking it's fresh up until you can finally see mold growing on it. To find out if a store gasses the meat, ask the guy at the meat counter to get you some ground beef, and ignore what he picks out. Look at the ground beef left in the case where he cut into it. It it's natural, it will be pretty much the same color all throughout. If it's gassed, there will be a layer about half an inch deep around the outside that is bright red, and the inside will be brown, because the CO2 doesn't penetrate very deeply into the meat. If you see that red out/brown in, the store has gassed the meat and you should NOT buy it, because there's no way you can judge how old it really is. And yes, the steaks will be stored in the same counter as the ground meat, so the steaks will be gassed too, and their ages also are unknowable. And never, never NEVER buy those packages of pre-marinated meat that have meat covered with some kind of sauce wrapped up. Stores will do that with meat that is REALLY old hoping the sauce they cover it with will hide the going-bad smell long enough to fool you into buying it. If you're so lazy that you're unwilling to marinate meat yourself, you shouldn't even bother cooking for yourself.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesMy hero!
As someone who actually use to work in a meat department, we dont have the ability to gas things in the store seeing how most of the meat is vacuum packed. Now I will say that a lot of meat is "colored" to look more fresh. Especially seafoods.
Every day I get closer to being a total vegetarian. I haven't read anything GOOD about meat in so long...
don't know about america but in europe canned food has both a 'net-weight' and a 'dry weight' on it (though the last one is in slightly smaller print).
Replyand shops are required to display both the price of a product and it's price per kilo/liter/etc
but i'm pretty certain that even in america that big bag of chips will have it's content's weight stamped on it somewhere. so just check that before bitching about it being only half-full.
or just gauge how heavy the thing is when picking it from the shelf.
You expect Americans to actually read the packaging? Blasphemy! But you're right, everything is marked according to weight and has price per ounce posted on the tag. And toilet paper has the dimensions printed on the package. Being one of those crazy people who uses a calculator to grocery shop (I live on a strict budget and worry about going over) I noticed this stuff right away. But most Americans just grab without reading the package. I am often mocked by other customers for comparing nutritional information on similar items in the store, so that should tell you a lot about our shopping habits over here.
This is the easiest way to avoid getting surprised and/or cheated by sneaky packaging, and it's a damn shame people don't pay more attention. Some stores even have labels on the shelf that will tell you how much the price per ounce boils down to, no matter what kind of packaging it's in, so you can easily compare between products and sizes; check the price of yogurt and you'll see a HUGE variety in price for the exact same (delicious, I admit) sugar-and-bacteria cocktail.
That doesn't mean they don't try to weasel their way out of giving you the information, though. Ingredient labels are teensy-tinsy, with hard to read lettering and spacing and fonts. For instance, speaking of toilet paper, the labels on the front letting you know exactly how many square inches you're getting are nearly impossible for me to see without my reading glasses. Last time I was at the store I spent a good five minutes trying to decipher two different packages of toilet paper before I just said "fuck it, I'll get the brand my always parents bought." (Psychological warfare was never my strong suit. Point: grocery store/Scott tissue)
"FEED OUR HOLES, SHOP-MAN." - Indeed.
ReplyI'm so yelling "FEED MY HOLE, SHOP-MAN" next time I go to the grocer's.
Reply"Which hole?"
The only things I don't really risk when it comes to expired foods are yogurt and other creamy stuff. This is probably because, when I was nine years old, I ate expired yogurt that tasted and smelled perfectly fine. I didn't know it was expired until I ended up sick for two weeks, and since I was in Spain with my relatives and barely spoke Spanish at the time, I couldn't really communicate what I was feeling. My sense of smell isn't too great, so yeah... I couldn't really rely on it.
ReplyAnyways, I was practically starving when I got to school today, so I got a bag of baked Lays, which are pure awesomeness. I opened the bag and less than 1/3 of the bad actually had chips. FML
You're supposed to throw out old medication? My parents have a treasure trove of old painkillers.
Reply