by Kevin Burton
I am not definitively saying that Wal-Mart, distributor of Vibrant Life cat litter, is squeezing customers financially. I didn’t do the documentation.
You see, my boyhood pastime of reading the back of cereal boxes did not linger into adulthood and cause me to read for information, such things as cat litter bags. I don’t know what size the bag was compared to what it is now.
The bag is about the same size.
What I am saying is, whereas before, my wife Jeannette could not lift the cat litter bag out of the trunk, now she can pick it up and bring it in the house.
We’d be putting away groceries and she would say, “I’ll let you take care of this” referring to the big bag of cat litter.
Then one day, when the cat litter was the last thing to be brought in as usual, I saw she had not only taken the bag out of the trunk, but brought it into the house.
I don’t know why she suddenly made that attempt, but her success sent my mind to that old capitalist trick – don’t change the price, make the product smaller..
“Before, if you took it out of the trunk I would drag it into the house,” Jeannette said, “and I would use all my weight to do it, you know, lean into it. “I know I’m not getting stronger…”
Our cats have not made any recalculations in their contribution to the cat litter equation. The product just doesn’t go as far.
And here is a further indignity. In bringing it to your attention I am admitting to not being exactly a gourmet cook. But the Kraft/Heinz Company of Chicago has stopped including the little plastic bags with the packet of coating in boxes of Shake ‘n Bake.
You’re still free to bake Kraft/Heinz says, but you’re on your own for the shake part.
I use Shake ‘n Bake (or used to) to make pork chops. When I opened one bag recently and found no bag, my mind went to statistical probability. I thought wow, I got the one box of Shake ‘n Bake with no bag. But since I had bought three boxes, I opened another one, expecting to find a bag.
Nope, no bag.
I thought I remembered the old Shake ‘n Bake TV commercials and got confirmation of it from Wikipedia:
“Shake ‘n Bake is particularly noted for its television commercials in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s,” the Wikipedia entry reads. “In the ads, children help make Shake ‘n Bake with their mothers, enthusiastically exclaiming, “And I helped!’”
Hey Kraft/Heinz, you didn’t help.
When you notice that your favorite product changed its label or packaging, it’s probably not the only change. So maybe this is not the kind of thing that would have drawn the ire of the late Ralph Nader, that noted consumer advocate, but I still say it’s weak.
Anybody else use dial soap? A while back Henkel Consumer goods changed the shape of it. They whittled a big chunk out of the bar so that the back side of it is now curved.
So now it fits the contours of your body. Wasn’t that thoughtful of them? It also does a little number on the contours of the corporate bottom line and your bank account.
One of the hair products I use made its bottle smaller some time ago. I mentioned this to my former stylist, who made some kind of medium-lengthy excuse for it, because it was a product her shop sold.
I thought, but did not say, “I’ve been coming to you for years and we have talked a little bit bout life and hair color, so you know I’m too smart to fall for that.”
We’ve noticed the same kind of thing with many other products. I’m sure you have too. And yes, we are going to live through the great cat litter shrinkage and other corporate tricks. It’s not that big a deal.
But if you feel my pain, send me some recipes for how to make pork chops without Shake ’n Bake.
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