New ripoffs at the grocery store (pop/soda)

[Brian Elfert]

Coke has come out with new 8 packs of pop/soda in various flavors. They are 8 oz cans instead of 12 oz cans.

The kicker is the regular 12 packs of Coke products are the same price as the new 8 packs! It would be far less expensive to pour out 1/3 of a 12 oz can than to buy the "new" 8 oz cans.

Does Coke think that consumers don't pay attention to unit pricing especially in today's economic times?

[Karl Card]

about a week ago i went to waldo world to get groceries... boy was i in for a surprise... not many but more than a hand full of instances where Great Value brand was higher than the national brand... and quite a few of the national brand prices hadnt changed but boy the size of the package was unreal... I remember when kraft mac and cheese was about 33 cents a box and would be enough for a family of 5 in addition to a meat and vege and bread.... wow now it would hardly feed a family of three... and great value pasta has the same price as the old package of great value but the amount in the box has been reduced... I have a freezer and I really need to start growing my own i think...

I would plant maters, cucumbers and celery and put hot chilis between each plant..

[Jim Koepke]

great value pasta has the same price as the old package of great value but the amount in the box has been reduced... I have a freezer and I really need to start growing my own i think...

Every time I try to grow pasta it comes out all spirally. Good spaghetti and elbow macaroni just won't grow in our soil.

Here is an old video of the Swiss spaghetti harvest from 1957:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...0580645535068#

A lot of food items actually cost less than the packaging.

I have heard that they have done studies to indicate that most consumers would rather have the amount of product lowered than the price going up.

Must be some pretty stupid people to not understand that that is the same as prices going up. Usually not to long after dropping the size, the price goes up anyway.

I noticed this with ice cream and yogurt. It happened with many brands of coffee years ago. Has happened with chocolate bars at different times.

jim

[Garth Keel]

Farm in Italy: 2" wide, three miles long, good for raising spaghetti. The old jokes are the best, you know right where to laugh!

[Charlie Reals]

Every time I try to grow pasta it comes out all spirally. Good spaghetti and elbow macaroni just won't grow in our soil.

Here is an old video of the Swiss spaghetti harvest from 1957:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...0580645535068#

A lot of food items actually cost less than the packaging.

I have heard that they have done studies to indicate that most consumers would rather have the amount of product lowered than the price going up.

Must be some pretty stupid people to not understand that that is the same as prices going up. Usually not to long after dropping the size, the price goes up anyway.

I noticed this with ice cream and yogurt. It happened with many brands of coffee years ago.

Has happened with chocolate bars at different times.

jim

As a kid I remember when Hershey went to a dime for the nickle chocolate bars. 3 musketeers were far bigger at a dime than they are at a dollar. Talk about inflation lol

[David Weaver]

All in all, I don't think coke prices have gone up much. I remember when Festival Foods put in a store near me as a kid, probably more than 25 years ago, and coke 2 liter bottles were 49 cents. People bought them like the sky was falling.

Inflation adjusted price of that is now probably a dollar. Coke was normally a dollar for a 2 liter back then, anyway.

What I don't like is how the pricing structure is done now (at least at the grocery stores now). Absolutely ridiculous regular price and sale prices half that. But if you want something for a party and you go and nothing is on sale, then you have to make a separate stop elsewhere - just stupid. I'm sure the store makes out better that way, or they wouldn't do it.

Next option up the street for me is target, and they do the same thing.

They've always had dumb options for bottle size or carton size, it just changes. Back when I was little, they made 10 ounce stubby bottles. They were the same price as 16 ounce bottles (they were glass, all of them, but with plastic caps like they have now - not the old returnable style bottles).

We've cut way down on it, anyway, until the smoke clears about the aspartame and the phosphoric acid.

[Joe Pelonio]

Fresh made pasta tastes a lot better than the old dried stuff from the store, and it's easy, fun to make. I have had a cranking pasta machine for nearly 20 years.

We have a big freezer, and make a monthly run to Costco and Sam's Club. Then my wife checks the ads and we buy only sale items that are really good bargains at the regular grocery stores, except if we run out of something we need in a hurry. To me the worst trick was reducing the size of ice cream from 1/2 gallon to 1.75 pints, some even 1.5 pints,
but it looks the same so you don't notice without reading it.

[Jason Roehl]

I want to know where all the GREEN outrage is over this! Assuming we consume roughly the same amount of perishable goods from year to year (with a slight increase due to population increases), but the package size goes down from time to time (please give me my 1/2 gallon of ice cream back...1.5 quarts is silly), then it takes progressively more packaging to deliver the same amount of goods, some of which surely does not get recycled.

Oh, well, since my wife started couponing almost 2 years ago, our monthly food bill was essentially cut in half. With 3 growing kids, the oldest being just months from the teenage years, I suspect that in a few years those savings will go away...

BTW, it takes us 2 boxes of Kraft Macaroni'n'Cheese to feed the 5 of us (with accompanying meat and veggie dishes), and very little is left over.

[Charlie Reals]

I want to know where all the GREEN outrage is over this! Assuming we consume roughly the same amount of perishable goods from year to year (with a slight increase due to population increases), but the package size goes down from time to time (please give me my 1/2 gallon of ice cream back...1.5 quarts is silly), then it takes progressively more packaging to deliver the same amount of goods, some of which surely does not get recycled.

Oh, well, since my wife started couponing almost 2 years ago, our monthly food bill was essentially cut in half. With 3 growing kids, the oldest being just months from the teenage years, I suspect that in a few years those savings will go away...

BTW, it takes us 2 boxes of Kraft Macaroni'n'Cheese to feed the 5 of us (with accompanying meat and veggie dishes), and very little is left over.

I will eat 0ne box of KMC by myself with all the trimmings. Good stuff

[Mitchell Andrus]

In 1953 my dad had his house built for $12,900.00.

I just received an estimate for a pavers patio at my house... $12,500.00. Just a patio.

I make more than my dad did in 1953. It's all relative.
.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I won't allow KMC in the house unless my granddaughter from Phoenix is visiting. I still won't eat it.

We survived for 3 months on just that in the fall of 1970. I was a young PO3 at the time with a wife and 2 kids. We could buy it for $0.05/box IIRC. One box fed the 4 of us. In November when I reenlisted, I got nearly $9,000 and we added to our diet.

[Brian Elfert]

All in all, I don't think coke prices have gone up much. I remember when Festival Foods put in a store near me as

Coke prices not up?? In 2008 I could get Coke and Pepsi for $3 a 12 pack almost all the time. In 2009 the sale price was often $3.66 for a 12 pack with very rare sales at $3 and below.

This year pop prices have really moderated. During the first few months of 2010 I could get Coke/Pepsi as cheap as $1.99 a 12 pack every other week. Walmart was doing 24 packs for $5 for spring and early summer. Now that the real heat has arrived pop prices have gone way back up. Luckily, Coke is $2.75 this week at Target.

The regular price on 12 packs of pop at Walmart/Target is $4.50 and up. I've noticed that pop prices vary regionally. I'm in the Minneapolis area and our prices tend to be high compared to the Southern parts of the USA.

I run a concession stand once a month so I follow pop prices every week and buy it when on sale. I don't stock up too much especially on diet pop as diet goes bad in a few months.

[Matt Meiser]

I make more than my dad did in 1953. It's all relative..

When I graduated from college and bought my first new car my dad was outraged at what it cost (and he worked for the company that made it!) I asked what he paid for his first new car and what he made at his first job. The car price/salary ratio was within 1%.

[John Coloccia]

re: soda

I'm guessing it appeals to parent who want to give their kids less soda in their school bag. Don't get me started on the soda in the schoolbag thing. That's just my best guess at the target audience.

[Brian Elfert]

I understand why folks might want smaller pop cans, but it really irks me that they charge the same for 8 smaller cans as for 12 larger cans. I don't necessarily expect them to charge less for the 8 oz cans, but charging more is ridiculous.