My grandma used to buy us Entenmann's Rich Frosted donuts, so I still get them on occasion when they are sale for a good bit of nostalgia. Soaking them in a glass of cold milk was THE SHIT. They changed a while back and are nowhere near as good. They used to look like this:



Now they look like shriveled ball sacks on a cold winter's day. What the hell? The taste is similar, but the texture is way off. I would pay extra to have the real deal.




QUESTION: What products (NOT LIMITING TO FOOD) that you liked originally changed so that prices didn't have to increase? This includes smaller packages, reduced effectiveness, varied formulation, flavor/texture/etc. (Granted, products can change for other reasons, but this is a big one).

FOLLOW UP: Would you pay an extra 10-20% to have the original product?

The texture changed on a lot of commercial baked goods about 10-12 years ago when they were forced by the government (I think) to stop using trans fats and the replacement fats changed the texture on a lot of them.

Here in the Philly region, TastyKake was king but after they changed away from the trans fats, a lot of their products changed too and have never been the same.

They had pies when I was a kid that were pretty large, filled with all sorts of delicious fillings and the crust was very sturdy, they changed to these pathetic little things that fall apart the second you pick them up.

You brought up another reason products change- changing regulations. I'd rather have the trans fat product. It's not like I'm eating them daily, anyway.

When Hostess went away and "came back" their products became smaller and changed in taste. (now made by someone else)

As for Entenmann's, they've been too expensive for a looong time.

Would I pay more? Yes. The alternative is to not have it.

I don't remember products but, yes, my wife and I note how both things even occur - volume decreases and price increases.

The latest one that was noteworthy to me was the blue mechanic paper towels. I saw a guy in line at Costco waiting in line. I couldn't help but remark to him that I remember those being sold like the size of regular kitchen tower rolls. These had the diameter of toilet paper.

I'm glad I still have several partials and I think a couple of full rolls somewhere that I bought sometime before 2019.

If they're not gonna fill a potato chip bag with chips, then make the bag fit the contents and save on paper, ink, and printing.

Not a food product but Qtips. The brand name. I’ve tried off brands and they suck. I’ll spend the extra bit for them.

Local restaurants seem to fall into this trap. The food is great at first and then the portions get smaller and quality declines. I'd rather pay more than see those things slide.

The biggie for me is appliances. I'd gladly pay more to go back to appliances that last 20 to 25 years.

Appliances without electronic controls worked just fine. Now many discover the control board is 1/2 the price a new unit and there's a 6 month backlog IF one can be found. Stoves are moving away from electric to gas because of it, yet the gas units still have boards.

As for the restaurant industry, most of it comes off the same 2-3 refrigerated trucks making their rounds. Yes, at first they do go for the franchised menu, but the constant crush of fees and requirements tend to make owners thinking it would be an instant gold mine start switching up things for more value engineeered products. Owners are usually not adept at facility management either - they will cheap out on a door knob and buy a $25 item to replace a $150 one and it starts failing every six months - but they don't see how that is worse. They just keep doing it over and over.

Buy the duty engineered and rated lockset, it pays its way. A residential lock is good for 25-35,000 uses a year, a commercial one 100,000 times a year. The restroom doors are used MORE than the front door and get the 100,000 time frequency - so use push pulls on them they don't mechanically fail. They cost more than a cheap Chinese box store lock too. Do you want to pay for the service call to install it three times a year, three locks, and customer dissatisfaction, or proven performance over a decade?

Nope, owners go cheap almost every time. No sense of management. Even if we can buy the better product, sadly, few actually do it. And now lets talks practice ammo . . .

Speaking of inflation and restaurants.

My neighbors 19 year-old daughter just started working at the local pizzeria/bar. Basic counter work and some prep. $17 hour + tips. Tips are averaging $6 hour. This same job was paying $11 hour pre-plandemic. The restaurants have to pass this cost on to someone. (you/me)

Just the other day we were at Home Depot picking up a couple things. I was almost out of painter’s tape and went looking for Scotch Blue; I had tried a roll of Frog Tape and didn’t like it as well. Found the Blue and bought it, but it was $7.50 and 1.88” wide rather than a full 2”. I was pretty shocked at the price.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
Not a food product but Qtips. The brand name. I’ve tried off brands and they suck. I’ll spend the extra bit for them.

I stopped buying Q-Tips brand when they quit making them with wooden sticks.

I need the leverage that wood provides, so I buy an off-brand from Amazon. Cheaper than the name brand as well.

I saw a piece on the news awhile back concerning this and they are calling it "shrinkflation". Same product, just ever so much less of it, for the same price...or perhaps more. Usually, the shrinkage isn't enough that most people notice or care about, but it all adds up. A package of fudgesicles that used to have 12 now has 10, or a package of cereal that was 14oz is now 12oz, etc....

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
If they're not gonna fill a potato chip bag with chips, then make the bag fit the contents and save on paper, ink, and printing.

The problem with filling the bag with chips is that then, by the time it gets from the factory to the distribution center to the store to your house, the contents of the bag are crushed into powder.

That isn’t a made up talking point by “big potato chip,” you can find examples of companies that don’t do it and the results are terrible.

There’s a very good tortilla chip made by a small independent company not far from where I live. They are a thick, crunchy, sturdy chip. They stuff a small bag completely full of them. By the time a bag gets to the shelf on a store here, half the bag has been mulched.

They are the toughest tortilla chips I have seen, and every single bag of them I have gotten has had more of the chips crunched into tiny pieces than any other bag of chips I’ve had.

If I need it and/or want it, I'll buy it regardless of price.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
I was almost out of painter’s tape and went looking for Scotch Blue

I was pretty shocked at the price.

I noticed this as well that all the blue painter's tape has gotten stupid expensive

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:

Not a food product but Qtips. The brand name. I’ve tried off brands and they suck. I’ll spend the extra bit for them.

I like powdered coffee creamer and only Coffee Mate will do, all the others are awful

The Aldi version actually ruined my coffee

I buy Blue Bell ice cream, regardless of price, because it's still rich, creamy, not whipped full of air, and still a full half gallon. I wish Breyer's was still the same. It was good once upon a time.

Butterfinger. They changed them a few years ago, & they're not even close to what they once were.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
If they're not gonna fill a potato chip bag with chips, then make the bag fit the contents and save on paper, ink, and printing.

The problem with filling the bag with chips is that then, by the time it gets from the factory to the distribution center to the store to your house, the contents of the bag are crushed into powder.

That isn’t a made up talking point by “big potato chip,” you can find examples of companies that don’t do it and the results are terrible.

There’s a very good tortilla chip made by a small independent company not far from where I live. They are a thick, crunchy, sturdy chip. They stuff a small bag completely full of them. By the time a bag gets to the shelf on a store here, half the bag has been mulched.

They are the toughest tortilla chips I have seen, and every single bag of them I have gotten has had more of the chips crunched into tiny pieces than any other bag of chips I’ve had.

If they would just pressurize the bags with dry nitrogen like you see on some, I’d think that would help with breakage. Make the damn things like a firm pillow.

This is a pet peeve of mine…finding quality.

It seems every company goes cheaper and cheaper by reducing quality.

I would gladly pay more for quality…heck, i’d pay more just to keep shit the same.

I can’t tell you how many products I repeat purchase only to find it different in quality.

Interesting to think about some of these things.
Reducing quality and providing less for the same cost have been practices for as long as I can remember, and that’s been a while. It was decades ago when I noticed a difference in appearance of Remington 22 LR hollow point “Golden Bullets.” Much later, but still long ago, food cans became smaller. Tuna fish cans were very obvious and things like canned vegetables shrank from 16 to 14.5 or 14 ounces. I don’t buy soft drinks, but I notice the proliferation of 7 (?) ounce cans, and I can only wonder how that has affected price per ounce of product.

As for consumers’ not wanting to buy higher quality products that (may) cost less in the long run, that assumes the average person has any way to know what products are better and not merely more expensive. We see discussions about that here all the time (“I use bacon grease to lube my guns; no need to buy any of that over-priced crap!”), and that’s for things for which there is actually objective information. When I had to have a water heater replaced I was fortunate to have a professional pipe fitter recommend one. Otherwise I’d have had no idea what to purchase.

If a gun isn’t so poorly designed and manufactured as to fail almost immediately, who can know if it will last 30 years or only 20? When someone comments about how “clear” the glass of a new $385 scope he bought is as compared to the other $295 scopes he owns, all that tells me is that he can see completely through it. Even when it’s a generally well-respected brand, sometimes we learn, “Oh, yeah: That’s their cheap line. Their high quality stuff is great, but that’s crap.” In other words, it’s not always because the consumer wants to cheap out.