What Happened To Good Value For Your Dollar

Yesterday I did some grocery shopping at the ShopRite over in Ellenville, resupplying my larder up at camp. One of my purchases was a half gallon of Orange Juice for Sunday morning breakfast. Today I get up, sliced some Tuscan bread for French Toast, put on coffee and poured myself some orange juice...that's when something caught my eye, when I got upset. For as long as I can remember, have bought milk, and orange juice in quarts, half gallons and a gallon. Remember all my life hearing things like, "pick up a gallon of milk, and a half gallon of OJ." After drinking some orange juice, waiting for the coffee to perk I noticed on the bottom of my orange juice container that my half gallon of OJ was not really a half gallon, but instead was only 59 ounces!

The container looked the same as it always had, but it was five ounces short of what I thought I was buying, was not the half gallon of OJ I thought I was getting for my money. Seems any more, companies are out to short change us as consumers...when was the last time you bought a pound of coffee? Take Folgers as example...the can still looks the same, but the days of buying most major brand coffee in a one pound can are long gone, the average can now holding only 11.5 ounces. Folgers with their PLASTIC containers are even worse, giving us a paltry 10.3 ounces of ground coffee when it used to be we got a pound of coffee, got our proverbial dollars worth when purchasing their product.

Isn't it time that corporations stop using deceptive packaging to lure us into accepting less for our hard earned dollars? Shouldn't a pound of coffee truly be a pound of coffee, rather than 10.3 ounces? Is it too much to expect a half gallon orange juice container to contain 64 ounces of OJ rather than a scant 59 ounces? We all know what a bakers dozen is, and we have all bought our eggs a dozen at a time, but I find myself wondering how long it will be before that too is a thing of the past, some marketing genius realizing they can increase profits by changing the packaging, putting just nine eggs in a carton instead of the traditional 12. Come on American Corporations, lets put some integrity back into the market, get back to the good old days when you gave us, the American consumer, value for our dollar.