Comments on: Minute Maid’s frozen juice ripoff

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:26:37 +0000

I have seen this reduction in Canada and expected to see the same size reduction at grocery stores in the US. Not so. Their frozen juice containers continue to be 12 ounces or 355 ml. How come we are the ones being ripped off? I did not notice any overall increase in price in the US. So. the smaller size appears to be "only in Canada".

By: jmac

jmac — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 12:48:23 +0000

Check out Orange Julep at the BIG ORANGE next to Decarie Blvd. Are you
getting the volume you pay for? Or is it topped with froth?

By: Jake

Jake — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:55:40 +0000

I noticed, around February of 2012, that Safeway in Canada has decided to jump on the 'down-sizing' wagon by reducing the size of their own brand of frozen orange juice.

By: emdx

emdx — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:31:18 +0000

That’s called the "Grocery Shrink Ray"...

I get most of my groceries there:

http://maps.google.com/?ll=45.476142,-73.57971&spn=0.013918,0.01972&hnear=Station+Place-Saint-Henri&t=m&z=16&iwloc=lyrftr:m,15585683314194051968,45.476594,-73.579195&layer=c&cbll=45.476072,-73.579808&panoid=duHyi21MHoLiABBMdG0sTA&cbp=12,343.23,,0,-0.2

It's like Club Price, but there's no membership, they have a better selection and it's right next to where I live. They sell many restaurant-sized package, so you can do substantial savings most of the time.

By: Oxotoxo

Oxotoxo — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:50:06 +0000

Not only the sugary stuff:
http://www.reddit.com/r/misc/comments/mgcdt/how_the_corporations_fuck_you_at_the_grocery/

By: Paris

Paris — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:43:09 +0000

I know this may be old, but I noticed the reduced cans, and was quite put off (to say the least).

I recently went to Loblaws, and bought a bulk of Frozen Minute Maid juice (as I have been put off from buying them at the regular grocery store as a result), and noted the cans of frozen juice were 475ml when I opened the package.

Giant cans of frozen Minute Maid frozen juice. Package of 12 for approx. $11.00.

Same 3 cups of water-per-can ratio requirement.

Interesting.

By: Nadine Lumley

Nadine Lumley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:00:44 +0000

Dear Minute Maid / Coca-Cola Company:

Re: Your new smaller frozen juice cans

I am beyond rage at your new smaller and less tastier frozen juice cans, specifically the Minute Maid lemonade ones (lemon and the pink).

A. they don't taste as good

B. it screws up my life in a way I never thought was possible, e.g.:

I don't have a stand-alone freezer and must cram as many cans as I am able into my small fridge freezer. These smaller cans take up less space in the standard room provided - which means all this wasted freezer space now. Better to go even smaller so then I can at least stack them double in there.

Or even better, please bring back the larger, standard-sized cans at a higher price - I don't care about the price. I want my normal cans back. With the taste restored.

Regards,

[ED: Lots of email addresses redacted]

By: chucha

chucha — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 16:44:48 +0000

I can tell by some of the comments that some of you can afford to pay the higher cost of products, but some of us who live from paycheck to paycheck with a family to feed, we begin to see a big difference when it is happening to almost every product. I have three kids in elementary school each taking two tetra packs of juice to school. That's 6 per day, 30 per week. Koolaid jammers over the past year went from 200 ml packs to 180 ml packs so now you get one less in a box of 10 so i decided not to buy koolaid and buy minute maid instead because they were still 200 ml. Now I'm not sure anymore. I'm just waiting for minute maid to go to 180ml. I've now bought a couple of aluminum bottles and they will now bring them to school with water and 1 tetra pack.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:10:31 +0000

I have tried the smaller Minute Maid tins & it doesn't even taste like orange.We have been buying Minute Maid for years,but not any more.The no name brands taste better.

By: Rennie

Rennie — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:12:52 +0000

Yup, I've been noticing with the Limeade and the Pink Lemonade that the old tins were being gradually replaced with smaller ones, yielding less juice in my juicer. Not only that, but Safeway is currently selling the smaller tins at more than I ever paid for the bigger ones. Thing is, I really like those two drinks, but I'm even more of a bargain hunter now.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:43:55 +0000

In Canada, try President Choice's frozen orange juice. Still the 355 ml can and a lower price.........

By: P-L

P-L — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:29:10 +0000

In the shrinking departement, there is a recent case that just disgusting me, the 591ml retail 7up went down to stand at 500ml, and for us to not to remark this drop, they've market it at a new bottle design, but every other Pepsi product is still 591ml

For now, no more 7up

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:45:23 +0000

Seriously, how stupid does Coca-cola assume it's customers are?? The response: "With the increase in commodities, rather than pass the total cost on to the consumer, the decision was made to adjust the package size to offset some of the increase the consumer would have had to pay if this adjustment wasn’t made." If we're getting less juice for the same cost, how is this not passing the cost on to the consumer? My kids like the Five Alive, but I'm switching brands. Even if the other companies do the same to remain competitive, I'll remember who led the way. Another instance of the fat cats getting fatter... Yay Capitalism!!!

By: lop

lop — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:05:18 +0000

Go read the last page / inside back cover of Consumer Reports magazine. this has been going on for years, and they even have a "black hole award" for teh prodecut with the largest container, yet smallest interal amount / volume. Every month I flip to the back page & get a good laugh. Not only about donwsizing, but other crazy & insane marketing gimmicks & tricks..

By: Fassero

Fassero — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:18:39 +0000

Minute Maid is a Coke subsidiary so it's par for the course, no? :)

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:53:29 +0000

The worst example of this is Saputo and what they've done to feta cheese.

They didn't even bother shrinking the size of the container OR changing the price when they moved from selling 400 g of feta to 175 g. They just added more water and changed the weight marked on the label (which was already hidden so well it's very difficult to find).

Needless to say I was very annoyed when I opened the lid and wondered why I had a teeny block of cheese in a massive container.

So the next time I bought feta I very carefully looked at the labels -- and switched brands. By by Saputo! You lost a customer!

By: ZDZedDee

ZDZedDee — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:55:57 +0000

Yogurt used to be in 1 litre containers! Now it's 650. This change was led by big food corporations, which can be fairly blamed for ruining everything good about food. Case in point is the relentless "extend the brand" new products that are ceaselessly appear on the store shelves. Do we really need milk with mega-corp-brand fibre added to it?

By: ZDZedDee

ZDZedDee — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:49:05 +0000

To me these are "manufactured" foods and I have learned that this means that I should stay away from them. Take a few super-concentrated fruit syrups (mmm, sweet sugar syrup), add water and the "flavour" ingredients (which do not need to be put on the label since they are technically adding back only what was removed in the processing process of making the fruit syrup. In fact, they could make "orange juice" taste unmistakeably like roses if they thought we suckers would buy it. There was a superb story on the flavour industry (scary!) in the new yorker a while back. Welcome to the wonderful world of food marketing. Marion Nestle's books can inform you more, Food Politics and What to Eat are very useful in figuring out what you should or should not be going in our mouths.

By: Kris

Kris — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 23:32:53 +0000

honey, you're late to the game, this has been going on a while

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/29shrink.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

By: emdx

emdx — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:14:42 +0000

Meet the latest victim of the fabled grocery shrink ray!

http://consumerist.com/tag/grocery-shrink-ray