Rip-Off Companies

Don’t you just hate being ripped off? Especially by big companies who have no need to do so but are only out to increase their profits.

I recently went to my local supermarket for my usual shopping. As a little treat for myself I sometimes buy a couple of Belgian Buns, delicious iced pastries with a hint of lemon curd. For as long as I can remember these Belgian Buns have been roughly the size of a CD, but now they are not much bigger than a biscuit – and the price has almost doubled! It’s bad enough putting the price up by as much as they have, but to reduce them in size by around 50% and expect us to pay almost twice as much for them is absurd.

They’re at it with almost everything, even their breakfast bars have shrunk. The packaging is the same size and the individual wrappers are the same size, but once you’ve got that wrapper off you can see that the cereal bar is almost an inch shorter – but the price of them has still gone up!

It’s not just the supermarket’s own produce that is shrinking either. I used to buy Sunpat Peanut Butter (notice how I say I USED to) which came in a standard glass jar. They are now producing it in a plastic jar that is around a third less in size than what it used to be – and about a third more in price. Along with the cereal bars and the Belgian Buns, Peanut Butter is now something I can live without.

Even Oxo are getting in on the act! It’s been a while since I bought any so I don’t know if the price has increased or not but I’m guessing that it has. How can a little Oxo cube shrink, they’re already tiny? That’s what I thought but have you noticed that when you remove the individual wrapper from the cube how, on four sides of the cube, a little bit has been removed so that the Oxo cube now forms an ‘X’. Why? It can’t be for presentation purposes because it’s not noticeable until you’ve removed the wrapper. The only possible reason is because Oxo are trying to rip you off by selling a smaller product for more money.

They all seem to be at it – biscuits are getting both smaller and thinner, paper kitchen towels are getting smaller with less sheets, there’s not as many sheets in a box of tissues, there’s only three chicken breasts to a pack now – even pre-cooked meat only has three slices per pack now whereas it used to be five or sometimes six slices, and they expect us to pay more for them.

It’s time we all stood up to these companies and refused to buy their goods. Once they realise that people are no longer buying their produce they won’t to be so quick to rip us off.