Big Oil, Tobacco, Drug Companies, and Ice Cream Manufacturers?

Big oil is to the average consumer what Mongolia was to neighbors in the time of Genghis Khan.  You know you are going to be pillaged, and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

Pharmaceutical companies pocket extra billions of dollars from consumers, thanks to their patents.  Tobacco companies are the scourge of the earth.  Insurance companies?  Don’t get me started. More than ever, our economy is one of caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

 

Joining the deceptive business practice hall of shame are ice cream manufacturers.  Oh sure, a pound of coffee has been 13 ounces for sometime, and cereal boxes don’t seem to be quite what they used to be, but ice cream? That seems almost unpatriotic.

 

But it is true.  A half-gallon of ice cream once was actually a half-gallon of ice cream.  It became 1.75 quarts over the past few years, and for some brands, containers now hold just 1.5 quarts.

 

I am all for a company to EARN a profit.  Even the oil and drug companies, though maybe not the tobacco companies.  But to down size a product while maintaining its price seems to more than take advantage of the unwitting consumer. 

 

Yes, like almost everything else, the price of ice cream ingredients has been going up. If the ice cream companies costs are way up, don’t they need to charge more for their product?  Yes.  And maybe charging the same for less product allows a consumer to still buy some ice cream.

 

Just tell us.  It is bad enough when industries we love to hate treat us like morons, but when businesses we want to love act like we are stupid, it really hurts.  I am not going to quit eating Wells Blue Bunny ice cream because of this, but they really should bring back the Goo Goo Cluster flavor as a peace offering.

~ by Ron Meyer on July 5, 2008.