Another "shrinkflation"?

[Brian Roth]

Interesting thing I just noticed in the past day or three....

For eons I've had small manual pump bottles for "Soft Soap" at kitchen and bathroom sinks. I refill them from "store brand jugs" to save $$$ vs. the name brand refill jug.

Latest Kroger "jug"....approx 1.5 quarts??....is noticeably watered down. Used to be one push/squirt for me to wash my hands. Now 2 or 3 squirts, and it is OBVIOUSLY much more watery than than it was last week after last refills using the same Kroger product offering.

Grrrr.

Bri

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

Local classic here, price of whole chickens (for a particular brand) goes up, chickens get smaller. Less feed required, earlier to market... mad if you don't right?

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Shrinkflation takes many forms...

 

[sodderboy]

Stay away from the triclosan, Bri! It is an estrogen stimulator if you know what I mean. . .
I do the same soap thang, but with the foamer dispensers. There you only use 1 1/2 fingers of soap in the bottle and fill with water. Replace dispensers every 6 or so years when naff.
How bout that pint of Hagen Daz at 14 oz? They can't make the "pound" of coffee any smaller after so many years of shrink, so they just raise the price on the 12 oz can.
I have been upgrading my home heating system and my shopping list for valves/pumps is up 20% since December, grainger and locally. I'm getting the whole list now for installation over the year.
Mike

 

[cyrano]

Local classic here, price of whole chickens (for a particular brand) goes up, chickens get smaller. Less feed required, earlier to market... mad if you don't right?

The average chicken is 5.5 times larger than a century ago...

Over here, chickens are sold by weight. So it wouldn't matter much, would it?

But I agree. My favorite aged Dutch supermarket cheese seems to get younger by the week.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I remember before they pumped up chicken by injecting salt water inside. This has been happening for years. I used to soak chicken in (cheap) beer overnight to soak up liquid. I called my recipe "tipsy chicken". That recipe doesn't work anymore because the chicken is already saturated with saline.

Guess what, the food industry is a business....

JR

 

[PermO]

Big brand supermarkets and products play this game a lot more compared to small retailers.

The price difference between big name canned junk and fresh produce has become smaller, I even noticed I can get the same amount of fresh salmon from a fish shop for the price of a can at the supermarket.

Shop wisely !

 

[JohnRoberts]

Big brand supermarkets and products play this game a lot more compared to small retailers.

The price difference between big name canned junk and fresh produce has become smaller, I even noticed I can get the same amount of fresh salmon from a fish shop for the price of a can at the supermarket.

Shop wisely !

Don't get me started on salmon... another big food business. One of my healthy slow cooked meals involved salmon I often ate it for lunch. Years ago I was able to source wild Pacific caught salmon, in my local Walmart freezer. Trying to buy fresh salmon here in nowhere MS could be a little dodgy. The wild ocean caught salmon was first shipped to China for processing (China is big on fish), then shipped frozen to Wally world here in the US. The wild (cough) salmon were raised in hatcheries and released into rivers in the North West flowing into the Pacific. After the salmon grew up in the ocean they were harvested while trying to return to their home rivers/streams. Not exactly shooting fish in barrel but a cost effective business.

The last time I bought frozen Salmon at Walmart recently, it was "farmed" salmon from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and processed in Poland. The label didn't say Baltic Salmon, but Atlantic salmon, so I suspect Poland is the modern low cost processor, unsure where it was farmed.

The price is more expensive than it was years ago, but so is everything else so I can't really compare that price objectively.

JR

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

The average chicken is 5.5 times larger than a century ago...

Over here, chickens are sold by weight. So it wouldn't matter much, would it?

But I agree. My favorite aged Dutch supermarket cheese seems to get younger by the week.

They are also sold by weight here but this particular company would sell their product standardised (1.6kg or size 16) for a set price. They went down to 1.5kg (size 15) and the price went up.

 

[pucho812]

Don't get me started on salmon... another big food business. One of my healthy slow cooked meals involved salmon I often ate it for lunch. Years ago I was able to source wild Pacific caught salmon, in my local Walmart freezer. Trying to buy fresh salmon here in nowhere MS could be a little dodgy. The wild ocean caught salmon was first shipped to China for processing (China is big on fish), then shipped frozen to Wally world here in the US. The wild (cough) salmon were raised in hatcheries and released into rivers in the North West flowing into the Pacific. After the salmon grew up in the ocean they were harvested while trying to return to their home rivers/streams. Not exactly shooting fish in barrel but a cost effective business.

The last time I bought frozen Salmon at Walmart recently, it was "farmed" salmon from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and processed in Poland. The label didn't say Baltic Salmon, but Atlantic salmon, so I suspect Poland is the modern low cost processor, unsure where it was farmed.

The price is more expensive than it was years ago, but so is everything else so I can't really compare that price objectively.

JR

I never understood how harvesting in one place, shipping it halfway around the world to process, followed by shipping it back to be sold, is cost effective.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I never understood how harvesting in one place, shipping it halfway around the world to process, followed by shipping it back to be sold, is cost effective.

They make it up with volume... Tons of fish being caught and moved at the same time. The Chinese eat a lot of fish so they are cost effective processing fish.

Farming fish in pens is cheaper than catching them wild in the ocean. Apparently there is a cost benefit processing it in Poland, vs where it was farmed (Norway?).

I just checked the walmart website and they show wild pacific salmon cheaper than farmed atlantic salmon..? While I did not find the Pacific salmon in the freezer last time I shopped for it.

[edit- since the website said they had the frozen wild caught pacific salmon in stock, so today I looked harder and found it om the top shelf in the corner. This weekend I will cook up batch of my healthy salmon lunch/edit]

JR

 

[Gold]

It's part of the advertising lifecycle of things like detergent. They start adding water to the most concentrated version and market as "more for the money". When it gets too watered down they start over again. The pitch now is "use less, more concentrated". I'm not sure what the time table is but I noticed with Tide laundry detergent it's about three years from concentrate to water down.

 

[cyrano]

I never understood how harvesting in one place, shipping it halfway around the world to process, followed by shipping it back to be sold, is cost effective.

That's not how big fishing operations work. Usually, they'll process and freeze on the ship that's central to the fleet. They return to their home harbour only because they have to unload.

I think it's Norway that operates a ship that turns Antarctic shrimp into shrimp oil. Everything's processed on board. The ship operates all summer long as the end product is picked up if and when needed.

Going back to China is logical. The biggest fish market in the world is near: Tokyo. And the fisher going back to Poland, probably is a Polish vessel. Poland has a sizable fishery fleet, operating all over the world.

Our North-Sea shrimp once were flown to Morocco to get hand peeled and then flown back. Today, that stopped as the harvest has become too small. Prices these days are so high they can be hand peeled by local workers.

There was a hubbub about Vietnamese fish containing too much chemical junk years ago. It died out when local US black catfish from one source were found out to be worse. The cod we buy probably isn't cod. It's one of four other species that replaced cod. Over fished.

I used to like fish. These days, it's hard to find nice fish. At least over here. But what I hear from other foodies, it's not very rosy the other side of the pond too.

 

[cyrano]

It's part of the advertising lifecycle of things like detergent. They start adding water to the most concentrated version and market as "more for the money". When it gets too watered down they start over again. The pitch now is "use less, more concentrated". I'm not sure what the time table is but I noticed with Tide laundry detergent it's about three years from concentrate to water down.

That's logical. The entire soap market is controlled by Procter and Gamble and a few others. They can do as they please. Besides, the biggest problem with soap is that most people can't handle the concentrated version. They use way too much.

In 1980 a friend started a company making eco-friendly soap. Everyone figured him crazy. He sold it to J&J in 2017. You can't escape capitalism. Still, J&J seems to have kept the product's formula identical.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Last weekend I cooked salmon again but using wild caught Pacific Salmon, instead of farmed Atlantic salmon. I made 15+ 1 cup servings stashed in my freezer for my daily breakfast. The salmon was the significant variable and some of this may be expectation bias on my part, but I perceive the relatively cheaper Pacific salmon as tasting better.

Many years ago I used the even cheaper canned salmon, but upgraded to frozen salmon.

JR

 

[CJ]

Can't get salmon steaks anymore. Only filets. Nothing tastes quite like the stuff you catch yourself, but 300 for a party boat plus deckhand tip and those two fish get mighty expensive.

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

Can't get salmon steaks anymore. Only filets. Nothing tastes quite like the stuff you catch yourself, but 300 for a party boat plus deckhand tip and those two fish get mighty expensive.

Rainbow trout is not too bad. Basically just the time cost. About 10mins drive as well.

 

[Matador]

300 for a party boat plus deckhand tip and those two fish get mighty expensive.

But spending the entire day drinking beer while someone drives you around while fishing is priceless.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I've enjoyed a few salmon meals in restaurants, but never in Mississippi. The one time I purchased some never-frozen salmon steaks in a local supermarket I was disappointed by the fact that the salmon smelled more like it was never-refrigerated.

OK on the subject of salmon, in restaraunts in MS. One lunchtime last century while I was in a Meridian eatery with several coworkers, I asked the server, an attractive young lady, if they had fresh salmon. She said of course it was fresh "they bring it up from the Gulf (of Mexico) every day."

I applaud her enthusiasm, but not her education.

JR

 

[scott2000]

I remember my Dad making Salmon pies when I was a kid.... I guess it had potatoes in it too. Pretty good stuff iirc....