7gen Bloc
Less for You and More for Them!
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Downsizing is a game that consumer packaged-goods companies have been playing on shoppers for decades. One day you go to the grocery store and that roll of bathroom tissue you bought last week -- the one that had 400 sheets -- now has just 380 sheets. Next year, it will be slimmed down to 320 sheets. At some point, there are so few sheets on the roll they discontinue the item and start all over again, hoping no one notices. Less tampons in the box; fewer cornflakes; less cheese inside the ravioli!
Seventh Generation has tried to avoid this practice, which confuses shoppers and generates untold tons of additional packaging that's ultimately destined for the dump. But at times, we've felt compelled to follow the competition, as we did when we reduced our dish liquid from 28 ounces to 25 ounces. Why? We believe our products look too expensive when they sit on the store shelf next to bottles that appear to be the same size as ours but are cheaper because they contain less product.
Sad to say, as commodity prices have soared, product downsizing has become even more rampant. Jonathan Birchall of the Financial Times surveyed the new landscape in a recent story, "Small may be beautiful but it can also be deceptive."
"Last month," Birchall writes, "Unilever's Skippy brand peanut butter reduced the contents of a typical jar from 18 oz to 16.3 oz by increasing the depth of the indentation on the bottom of the plastic tub. It kept the price unchanged." Birchall goes on to report that Kellogg's, Del Monte, PepsiCo, and many other consumer-product heavyweights are doing the same. The practice can be quite lucrative -- General Mills increased the sales of packets of its leading cereals (like Cheerios) by 6%, even though "…the weight sold was virtually unchanged from the previous year."
All of which means that in these tough economic times, product (and employee) downsizing will unfortunately continue.
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I find it ironic (and a little disgusting) that you would write such a hypocritical ad. Have you checked the number of diapers in your pack lately? Yes the number of diapers in a package has gone down, but the price has not gone down to match. Have you ever heard the adage "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?"