LITTLE ROCK — Across the supermarket, manufacturers are trimming packages, nipping half an ounce off that bar of soap, narrowing the width of toilet paper and shrinking the size of ice cream containers. Prices, however, remain about the same.
For example, jars of Skippy peanut butter now include a dimple in the bottom that slices the contents to 16.3 ounces from 18 ounces - about 10 percent less peanut butter.
The only way to know less is there is to look at the weight on the label and recognize it's lighter than before Unilever, owner of the Skippy brand, switched out containers.
Often such changes are so subtle that they create "the illusion that you are buying the same amount," said Frank Luby, a pricing consultant with Simon-Kucher & Partners of Cambridge, Mass.
It's an age-old dilemma for food companies as they juggle prices, container sizes and profits - at the same time coping with rising prices for ingredients and greater competition on supermarket shelves.
At international food giant Unilever, "We have chosen to reduce package sizes as one of our responses [to rising commodity and business expenses]," said spokesman Dean Mastrojohn. He also noted the new smaller sizes are clearly marked on labels.
Shopper Kathy Yukl of La Crescenta, Calif., north of downtown Los Angeles, says she's tired of going to the store and finding dimples in the bottoms of jars - she buys Skippy only when she has a coupon. She is annoyed that containers that once held half a gallon of ice cream, or 64 ounces, now have only 48 ounces. And she's frustrated that cereal boxes are shrinking in size.
"What these companies don't realize is that their chronically deceptive marketing ploys tell us loud and clear that we absolutely cannot trust them for anything," Yukl said.
When asked whether the new packaging was deceptive, Mastrojohn said that the lower weight was listed clearly on the package.
Unilever also changed the shape of its Breyers ice cream containers, reducing the contents to 1.5 quarts from 1.75 quarts. Competitor Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream did the same, shortening its carton.
Reducing the size of the Dreyer's and Edy's Grand Ice Cream cartons was not an easy decision, spokesman Kim Goeller-Johnson said.
"We understand that consumers don't like to pay the same price for a smaller container," Goeller-Johnson said.
But the division of food giant Nestle had seen large increases in what it paid for milk, cocoa, sweeteners and energy during a period when the average price of ice cream had "not really changed much," she said.
"We looked at raising prices to cover these costs, but at some point, it just doesn't make sense to raise prices too high. ... The ongoing feedback from our customers is that they aren't ready to pay $7 or more for a carton of ice cream," Goeller-Johnson said.
In June, Kellogg Co. reduced the weight of many popular cereals by an average 2.4 ounces per box to offset rising grain and energy expenses.
The reduction wouldn't be obvious to shoppers walking down the cereal row. From the front, the height and width of the box remains the same; only the depth was reduced, Kellogg told the Los Angeles Times.
Dial shaved its soap bars to 4 ounces from 4.5 but kept the size and look of its packaging the same, spokesman Natalie Violi said.
Dial didn't want to increase the price of its soap but needed to do something to maintain its profit because of the skyrocketing cost of tallow. Made from beef and chicken fat, tallow is one of the primary raw materials of bar soap. Its price has doubled over the past 18 months, Violi said.
Many of these changes were made when food commodity and oil prices were surging to record highs. It's not clear what the companies will do now that the cost pressures have subsided. Oil has fallen from more than $145 a barrel in July to about $61 now. Wheat futures are down from $12.82 a bushel in March to $5.21.
Manufacturers aren't likely to go back to the larger sizes because of the expense involved in changing packaging. And they are not interested in setting off a price war with competitors, Luby said.
The big question is whether consumers who notice they are getting less for their money stop buying the product. Any backlash probably will be small, Luby said.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 11/10/2008