
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102040256
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FOOD CONTAINERS SHRINK; NOT PRICES

I HAVE NOTCED several articles in area newspapers commenting on reduced contents in food packaging with the price staying the same. Your Jan. 16 Extra section carried a follow-up on the situation. This has been more noticeable in the past couple years with such items as toilet tissue and powdered detergents, and many other too numerous to count.

Tissues have gone from 300 sheets to 250 sheets. Most of the powdered detergents have dropped from 42-ounce boxes to 36 ounces. Many dry cereals have anywhere from two to five ounces less with the same size box. The price stays the same or, often, advances a few cents.

In my 42 years in the food business, sugar was sold in five-pound bags. In some areas there is a move to four-pound bags. Customers can remember the cost of a five-pound bag, but with four it gets confusing.

For years the consumer knew just what a pound of coffee cost, and it was easy to compare. Not so today. The coffee manufacturers have gotten together and decided to really confuse the consumer. When Mrs. Consumer goes to the market, she is confronted with bags weighing 11 ounces, 13 ounces. There are cans holding 13, 26 and 39 ounces. It is necessary to carry a calculator to arrive at the cost per ounce.

One national food store in the Roanoke area has changed its private brand from a pound bag to 13 ounces and its three-pound bag to 39 ounces. The prices here have not been reduced.

Another national food chain in your marketing area is maintaining its private label in the sizes it has sold for 50 years, one- and three-pound bags. I commend this group of stores is helping to keeping the same weights and making it easier for consumer shopping and comparisons.

I can not accept the Brand Manufacturers Institute statement that consumer surveys requested this for easier calculating. Consumers should write to the manufacturers and express their displeasure with this type of underhanded rip-offs. This is what I am going to do. EUGENE MULLINS STAUNTON

by CNB