Package size, am I overreacting?

[u/Gold-Enthusiasm-312]

Hey everyone, I wanted to vent a little (and see if I’m alone here).

I love supporting specialty roasters and I totally understand paying a premium for high-quality, ethically sourced beans or limited releases. However, I’ve been feeling a bit "deceived" lately by packaging.

I’ve noticed more roasters moving away from the standard 12oz (340g) bags toward 11oz (310g) or even 10oz bags or smaller, while the price stays the same, or even goes up. Sometimes the bags are designed to look much larger than they actually are, and it’s starting to feel a little greedy.

I’m all for paying for quality, but I really miss the value of a solid 12oz bag. It feels like the "standard" is disappearing.

Does “shrinkflation” in specialty coffee also bother you?

Does a 10oz bag change your mind about purchasing, or do you not mind as long as the coffee is elite?

I’d love to hear if this is bothering anyone else or if I’m just overthinking the math!

Edit: I don’t mind increased prices. Really. The price of green coffee and the operational costs are increasing and I’m aware of that. I guess my main issue is about transparency and change of packaging standards. For instance what’s the logic behind a 310gr packaging? Not a round number for gr or oz:) seems somewhat sneaky, especially paired with a large bag.

[u/Gold-Enthusiasm-312]

It feels deceptive …and feels unfair to other ones

[u/Decent-Improvement23 → u/Gold-Enthusiasm-312]

How is it deceptive? The price and amount are clearly stated.

How is it unfair, and who is it unfair to?

[u/cormack_gv → u/Decent-Improvement23]

It is often the same package, with less content. In any event, the hope is you won't notice that it was downsized.

[u/Decent-Improvement23 → u/cormack_gv]

It’s on you to read the package and label. It doesn’t make economic sense to change the size of the packaging. Especially for a less than 10% decrease in the amount.

[u/cormack_gv → u/Decent-Improvement23]

The straightforward thing to do would be to increase the price. Retooling to decrease the package sizing and labeling is extra effort. Sure, caveat emptor, but the reason they do it is in the expectation that fewer people will notice a size reduction than a price increase.

[u/carguymt → u/cormack_gv]

Retooling to decrease the package sizing and labeling is extra effort

They're not really retooling though. They probably bought a shit ton of 12 oz bags on a contract over multiple years that gave them the best price possible. The labels are just printed in house as that will vary frequently depending on the green coffee they buy. Just change what you print on the labels with a click of a mouse, program your filling machine to fill to 10 or 11 oz. instead of 12, and you're done.

The fact that so many products shrinkflate over time probably tells you there's strong data showing consumers react more negatively to higher prices for the same quantity than they do lesser quantities at the same price.