Creeping Dishonesty

If you open a can of beans, any brand, it will be filled right to the brim. If you open a carton of ice cream, it too will be filled right to the brim, but then if the ice cream company wanted to short change you on calories, all they would have to do is whip a bit more air into the product. If you open a container of yogurt, you will notice it is filled only to within 2 cm (0.79 in) of the brim and dropping. If you open a box of breakfast cereal, you will discover it is only about half full. They claim this is necessary to account for settling but the Dorset cereal company somehow manages to fully fill their boxes. Similarly boxes of ginger snaps are only half full. But the masters in the arts of deception are the patent medicine and pharmaceutical companies. A great big bottle or box might contain only 10 pills. Manufacturers would not dream of posting a false weight on a package. Deceptive packaging is legal and much more efficient at fooling the customer, since the customer rarely reads the fine print on labels. I object to this practice on several grounds:

• It is a blatant attempt to swindle the customer. We should not put up with those sort of ethics.
• This crookedness implies the company is swindling and harming the customer in other ways that cannot be detected. Such a company cannot be trusted on anything.
• It is wasteful of packaging.
• It increases shipping costs.
• It wastes twice as much shelf space, leaving less room for other choices.
• It puts twice as much crap into the landfill.
• It generally harder on the environment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)