My Food's Shrinking!

[roddy]

Is anyone else noticing the Chinese food industry opting to reduce quantities where possible instead of raising prices? I know things are getting more expensive and something's got to give, but personally I'd prefer to pay a little more and get what I used to get. Seems like the folk selling the food know how price-sensitive most of their customers are though, and are opting to trying and sneak reduced sizes past them instead.

My morning baozi: no healthy sized blob of meat inside them any more, oh no. It's a bit of steamed bread which accidentally got a bit of pork rolled up inside it during the preparation process.

My nice french sticks from the supermarket. No longer are these large enough to accommodate oodles of whatever I chose to put in them. They're giant breadsticks.

I noticed some others but I can't remember them just now.

[imron]

Yeah, I've been noticing this happening for a while now. What's really galling is when they reduce the portion sizes and increase prices

[cdn_in_bj]

Inflation in the past year has been worse than the official CPI figures would lead us to believe. I don't like it either, but what can you do?

[outcast]

The government capped food prices a month or so ago.

[mr.stinky]

yeah, all the portions have been getting smaller, and amount of meat has become almost

insignificant, barely a flavoring instead of an ingredient.

anyway, the size of soft drinks in bottles has been increased 20% -- from 250 to 300ml,

while the price has increased 50% -- from 1.00 to 1.50 rmb.

[flameproof]

The government capped food prices a month or so ago.

They obviously didn't fixed the the quantities. And we all know how efficient Chinese government control works anyway.

If the control would be really tight then vendors would just stop selling. Like the gas station in Souther China. The sales price is fixed, but seems the wholesale price is not. If the petrol can't be sold for a profit the just close the pump, happens most often with diesel fuel. Those petrol station that still sell diesel then have trucks lined up for kilometers.

Government controls can be really dangerous too! I think it was in New Zealand were the restricted the hight for bungee jumps - but they didn't shortened the jump rope accordingly!

[roddy]

I don't like it either, but what can you do?

Riot

Seriously though, I don't object to paying more for food. There are any number of reasons why costs are going up, and set against, say, my spending on cups of coffee, it's not that big an issue. But the sneaky shrinking portions does annoy me. The French stick thing prompted the rant, as they'd turned what used to be a perfectly good sandwich component into, basically, a giant crust.

[outcast]

I don't like it either, but what can you do?

Send plant seeds into space, makes them grow bigger:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-07/24/content_647365.htm

There are any number of reasons why costs are going up, and set against, say, my spending on cups of coffee, it's not that big an issue.

I haven't paid too much attention to this, why is inflation so high?

[Rincewind]

I haven't paid too much attention to this, why is inflation so high?

There's loads of reasons. The Chinese economy is booming while the west is falling on hard times with the dollar value dropping. Moderate inflation is a normal side affect of a boom. As more money comes into the system you get increases in consumption and the market responds to the sellers market by upping prices. Too much inflation can be hard but it's changes in inflation rather than the actual value that are important as they affect your ability to forecast you future earnings and spendings and create uncertainty.

The cost of food world wide is high. Grain is currently fetching twice the price on the international market than it did a few years ago. There's many reasons for that such as an increase in market speculation and more money invested in commodities than before. Oil prices are at an all time high, and so the cost of producing and transporting is higher and will get higher yet.

[billiardsmike]

I'm with you Roddy, especially on the baozi. There was a time when I wouldn't have dreamed of ordering more, but now I'm seen as the gluttonous laowai because one order just doesn't quite do it. Then I'm torn between wasting several or getting stuffed. And I can say from experience that it's not worth the trouble of putting the rest in your backpack:oops:.

[liuzhou]

The shrinking food syndrome is a normal feature of communism. Nope. Scrap that.

The shrinking food syndrome is a normal feature of the march towards a socialist utopia. Nope. Scrap that.

The shrinking food syndrome is a normal feature of Deng Xiaoping Theory. Nope. Scrap that.

The shrinking food syndrome is a normal feature of capitalism. Yep. That will do.

It's pretty normal. The psychological impact of an actual price rise is much more negative than a gradual lowering of size.

But then size doesn't matter. As the Mrs keeps telling me!

[Lu]

Hopefully in a while they'll start offering baozi with extra meat for a higher price, so that the people willing to pay for it can get their regular meal back.

(No reductions here, only Subway went from 3 slices of cheese to 1, with an explanation letter saying they're very sorry and hope to get back to the regular amount soon. I'm not holding my breath.)

[liuzhou]

I hold my breath when I just pass a Subway!

[Luobot]

There's a world-wide shortage of energy. But don't worry, "we'll grow our way out of it."

[Luobot]

Here's a 2000 year "ass" technology solution that adapts to meeting the soaring cost of oil and consequent food shortage crises (which I found buried in an otherwise boring, though quite possibly accurate, rant against "lying financial institutions"):

people have begun adjusting to high oil prices … perhaps the most entertaining this week was the news item that the price of donkeys in Turkey has increased sevenfold from 26 euros (US$40) to 180 euros in the past few months. The reason is of course that farmers can no longer afford to use their tractors due to fuel costs and have turned back to the 2,000-year ass technology.