Comment by instagib
5 hours ago
The physical size of charmin changed during the pandemic.
Good to track this yearly since some standard metrics are useless versus the shrinkflation, reduction in quality ingredients, and other manipulation we’ll learn about sooner or later.
Many ice creams are now dairy desserts due to not having enough ingredients to make the cut. Same with milk chocolates and now declared chocolate candy due to not using enough real cocoa.
> The physical size of charmin changed during the pandemic.
This is generlly taken into account. From StatCan, who publishes Canada's CPI numbers:
> 7.10 Quantity adjustment entails accounting for changes in the quantity (e.g. package size, number of tissue ply, etc.) of observed POs. This is another implicit method of quality adjustment because it is assumed that the quality per standardized unit is the same over time.
> 7.11 Quantity adjustment is the default treatment for nearly all of the POs in the food major aggregate as well as some of the products in the household operations, and personal care supplies and equipment aggregates.
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62-553-x/2023001/chap-7-...
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/62-553-X
In the article it says:
To account for possible changes in package sizes, we focused on the price per unit, whether it was an ounce of salsa or a square foot of aluminum foil.
It doesn't say that they accounted for possible changes in item quality. Tide detergent claims that their new 80-oz bottle of laundry detergent can wash 64 loads just like the previous 100-oz bottle because it's more concentrated, and I suppose NPR (if they'd retained a sample of the previous product) could have brought that to a chemistry lab to test and verify that claim, but I have no idea how you'd objectively prove that an ounce of salsa had truly remained the same product.
Sure, but they are accounting for size shrinkage which the original poster was saying they didn't.
I don't really know how you can account for quality either. User surveys? Ingredient sourcing? But then again I think this kind of reporting is just a general barometer. Some other comments are pointing to data sources that might do more of this.
Laundry detergent is usually priced as cents per load by savvy shoppers. That would factor out smaller doses.
1 reply →
I'm not sure if it's a national thing, but Hardees/Carl's Jr Large Cup sizes slowly decreased in volume until they matched the McDonald's Large Cups.
There's been plenty of volume gaming as costs and prices have risen.
"Pack contains 6 Mega Rolls (224 Sheets Per Roll) of Charmin Ultra Soft Toilet Paper"
to
"MEGA ROLLS, MEGA VALUE: Pack contains 6 Mega Rolls (208 Sheets Per Roll) of Charmin Ultra Soft Toilet Paper"
Everyone saw that coming when they changed roll sizes and reframed it, right?
Toilet paper math is the hardest kind of math. According to the print on various different packages of Charmin, and I could not make this up:
12 Mega Plus rolls = 54 Regular rolls
30 Double Plus rolls = 68 Regular rolls
12 Super Mega rolls = 72 Regular rolls
18 Mega rolls = 72 Regular rolls usually, but sometimes are sold as "Bonus Mega = 82 Regular rolls"
They can keep the sheets per roll the same and still give us less for the same price if they reduce the dimensions or thickness of the sheet too. They should just give us a weight assuming the paper is less expensive than the cardboard roll inside.
I rarely eat pork, but saw some ridiculously cheap bacon at the store last week.
When I got home I noticed it was 12oz instead of the (historical) norm 16oz.
In other words: enshitification ensues!
When every company at once throws it at you it seems like something different. Someone called it baffleware. It's all too much to track/account for/adjust to, so you just comply. Kind of like Trump and Project 2025, but it's being done on a corporate level on everything in our lives.