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Someone moved my pillows: Thelma packaging as an example
The storm in the social networks around the reduced Thelma packaging shows that the rise in prices in the food industry has been here for a long time, but the fact that we have only just noticed it proves that we have become more sensitive consumers.
America is here
Tags
Thelma
Cushions
Kokoman
Unilever
Cost of living
Nir Kipnis
Monday, 06 December 2021, 10:34 Updated: 10:49
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In recent days, the social network has been in turmoil: someone checked and found that Thelma's packaging, such as vanilla-flavored pillows and cushions, had shrunk by tens of thousands to close to 100 grams per package, while the price did not change. Meaning - Thelma actually raised prices without raising the nominal price on the packaging.
Allegedly this is a consumer injustice - and immediately required as well, but something in this story sounds familiar to those who trust consumer information, even too familiar: the change in packaging size was published more than two years ago, in October 2019.
Even before the first Chinese coughed up mysterious pneumonia, even before they came up Prices of raw materials, even before there has been a change in transportation rates and all the other reasons that have been presented to the public recently as objective factors because of which upward prices should be updated.
In practice, the change happened more than a year ago, when the new and lighter packaging hit the shelves.
Why did we only notice this now?
Because now the issue is in the headlines: everyone is talking about the cost of living in Israel.
"Thelma Storm" if you will, the thunder that comes about two years after the lightning, is proof that we have become conscious consumers.
After years of self-flagellation and stories about the American consumer whose prices cannot be raised even by one cent without risking a consumer boycott, we have caught America.
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Supermarket shelves.
The rise in prices began even before the corona, when the promotions and quantity discounts gradually disappeared (Photo: ShutterStock)
Rising prices in disguise
Let's put the pillow packaging aside for a moment and talk a little about price increases in disguise - the price increases that have been with us throughout the last two years.
These are not only expressed in the change in packaging volume, a change that the manufacturer is required to report not only to retailers but also to consumers (it is important to note that Unilever, the corporation behind Thelma, acted lawfully on the issue. Elimination of promotions: What was until yesterday in the "Buy 2 and get the 3 for free" campaign almost disappeared from the supermarkets.
These are price increases of tens of percent that do not touch on the price tag on the product: the consumer receives less, but the manufacturing or marketing company does not appear to be greedy, since it is "struggling" to preserve the original price.
In this context, it is important to note that the blame for eliminating the promotions does not lie exclusively with the manufacturers, importers and distributors - the marketing chains, which have recently shown very good profits in their balance sheets, also play a part.
Nougat-flavored pillows.
Unilever changed the packaging two years ago.
Why did we only notice this now?
(Photo: PR)
Easy packaging, hard reality
If Unilever operated legally, then why did so many consumers feel cheated?
Maybe because the report to the network about price increases does not meet most of us, while the packaging on the shelf actually does: whoever used to send his hand to the regular shelf, take off a package that looks the same size as the favorite brand - and find out in retrospect that it contains less, .
In response to the publications, the Consumer Protection Authority announced that it may refine and update the procedures, but the requirement from manufacturers and distributors must be clear: just as you excitedly inform us of a new package or recipe - and celebrate these in advertisements, In the fine print of the net weight - in that its applicability has changed (in 99% of cases, to our detriment).
It is true that it is very unsexy to write on a package of cereal a sentence like: "This package that has so far contained 750 grams, now contains only 680 grams", but maybe it will make companies think twice before deceiving the public, even if it is done according to Law and Authority.
Anyone who thinks this is excessive, please think again that Rosh is an unfair equation: on one side is a manufacturer or importer who earns hundreds of millions, on the other side a consumer who tries to fill the cart without getting a phone call from the bank.
Recently, there has been quite a bit of talk about the Consumer Protection Authority, the Competition Authority and other bodies that are supposed to protect us, the consumers, from unfair competition.
Well, once again it has been proven that this watchdog needs some wise consumer to wake him up to start barking, I'm not talking about biting anymore.
The corona taught us to check the bill?
(Photo: ShutterStock)
The media is "guilty"
This time, too, the media is to blame, but this time positively - at least from a consumer perspective: the fact that a change published more than two years ago and occurred on the shelves more than a year ago is now receiving such a spotlight proves that the cost of living has entered the public discourse.
Maybe it's because our senses have sharpened after closures where we had time to check the account details more deeply, the same elongated paper that on days like ours we throw away without checking twice, maybe it's the fact that more companies have become public and are required to report numbers publicly?
Maybe, but for me it's mostly the fact that in the new systems they realized that consumerism, once a headline that provoked a yawn, became an interesting topic. To paraphrase Shalom Hanoch: The public is no longer an idiot and therefore the public is in no hurry to pay, at least not to pay and remain silent.
If consumer magazines once used to mediate PR messages on behalf of manufacturers and importers, now they use social networks to reflect a consumer world that is becoming a constant price survey: one smart consumer is enough to take a picture and upload a photo to the web Without providing us with a real explanation, let alone a good explanation other than the will, legitimate in itself, to increase the profit line.
The Israeli government is celebrating the transfer of the budget to the plenum.
Due to the celebrations, we did not notice that the government is also making us pay more for a similar product (Photo: Knesset Spokeswoman, Danny Shem Tov)
Account please, also to the number of ministers
So what did we have here?
Rising prices in disguise, which actually occurred a long time ago and is not related to all the chisbats we sell about the rising prices of raw materials and transportation costs.
A company that drove legally but still hurt its customers - and along the way presented consumer watchdogs as toothless, and especially a growing awareness of consumers who are tired of being suckers, tired of companies making tens of millions, hundreds of millions and even billions selling them air in bags.
The fact that the network is now turbulent due to a move that took place quite some time ago, is proof that something has changed at the threshold of our consumer sensitivity.
Has the Israeli era as a consumer sucker ended, compared to its counterpart in most Western countries?
Early to know - maybe only when we start punishing not only manufacturers and distributors, but also governments with more than thirty ministers, will we get fairer trade.
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