Maybe you’ve noticed as you go up and down the supermarket aisles. A lot of food companies are adding size names to their packages of cookies, candy, cereal, and snack food.
“Everything is party size, family size, giant size, mega size,” said consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky, publisher of ConsumerWorld.org.
He calls it a “very clever ploy” by manufacturers to teach shoppers to grab a package based on the size name and not the net weight.
“My sense is they’re trying to desensitize consumers, so you’re buying by size name instead of buy size number,” Dworsky told me. “If you don’t pay attention to the net weight, they could downsize products more easily.”
As an example, he points to Post Honey Bunches of Oats. The family size box, which used to be 23 ounces was downsized to 18 ounces, and the 23-ounce box was renamed giant size.
“But it’s the same old size that it always was,” Dworsky said. Post did not respond to Consumer World’s requests for comment.
So, what’s a savvy shopper to do?
“You have to buy by net weight or net contents,” Dworsky suggested. “Just look at the net weight of the products you buy all the time, double-check when you go back to the store that you’re still getting the same one. Ignore the size names; look for the size numbers.”
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