Häagen-Dazs Will Decrease 'Pint'-Sized Ice Cream Tubs
A pint's not a pint, unless it's a pint, right? Häagen-Dazs will shrink its ice cream "pint" tub from 16 to 14 ounces, reports Advertising Age. Mini tub competitor Ben & Jerry's is very critical of the shrinkage, with this to say on their website:
One of our competitors (think funny sounding European name) recently announced they will be downsizing their pints from 16 to 14 ounces to cover increased ingredient and manufacturing costs and help improve their bottom line. At Ben & Jerry’s we think downsizing pints is downright wrong. We understand that in today’s hard economic times businesses are feeling the pinch. We also understand that many of you are also feeling the same, and think now more than ever you deserve your full pint of ice cream.
Does Häagen-Dazs just secretly think we're too chubby? Either way, I want those extra few spoonfuls back, thank you very much.
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21 Comments:
Pint's a pound, the world around!
d_m_u_n at 8:17PM on 03/09/09
thats sucks. im trying to reach through the screen and grab that gorgeous looking sticky toffee pudding ice cream. omg noms.
redzerostar at 8:30PM on 03/09/09
WHA?! It's bad enough that 1/2 gallon tubs of ice cream are not 1.5 quarts. Ugh, this is so wrong. :(
BrooklynBrownie at 8:59PM on 03/09/09
I clicked through to the Ad Age story only to find that Ben & Jerry's parent company Unilever may be the pot calling the kettle black:
"While the brand's stance may be poetic for Chubby Hubby fans, it might come back to haunt it. Ben & Jerry's parent Unilever began decreasing the size of its half-gallon containers years ago."
Pints should be pint-sized and half-gallons should be a half-gallon.
Ed Levine at 9:10PM on 03/09/09
This is not a suprise, just a shame. Companies have been doing it for years. Either the size shrinks or the ingredients suffer. We all understand that people need to make a living and costs are constantly going up. It would be nice to see just once somebody being upfront about it. Maybe a nice ad campaign about how they appreciate peoples product loyalty but w rising costs etc we need to raise prices or cut container size. It could even be left to a public vote. Might win some respect from folks. At least it would be different from yhe norm
dasmueller at 9:16PM on 03/09/09
Perhaps they are trying to introduce a new unit of measurement to replace our Imperial system, Scändinavian ünits.
tina_eats at 9:47PM on 03/09/09
Bought a carton of Tropicana OJ the other day. They used to be 16oz. it was 14oz.
bobbob at 9:47PM on 03/09/09
I have to say, though, this change still won't make me eat Ben & Jerry's over my beloved Häagen Dazs.
BangieB at 11:11PM on 03/09/09
Ridiculous, yet somehow not unexpected.
shoneyjoe at 12:06AM on 03/10/09
I think Ben & Jerry's comment is rich...they cut costs by putting a bunch of crap in their ice cream. Haagen Dazs for me any day, even in a 14oz package.
ragna at 12:15AM on 03/10/09
Agreed with all the previous comments. Until the day that Ben and Jerrys makes a decent strawberry ice cream, its the smaller Haagen Daaz for me. They win with better ingrediants (even if I get 2 oz more with B&J).
Eaterlover at 7:55AM on 03/10/09
I honestly think most consumers would prefer to see the cost go up. How much would it need to go up to prevent us from feeling fleeced like this, really? If it were 20 cents more, which is probably MORE than enough, people would still buy it.
rockandroller at 8:05AM on 03/10/09
So, I wonder if they will cut the cost of their product since they are shrinking the size...Yea, right. Just another reason for me not to buy HD ice cream.
Butrflygirly at 8:52AM on 03/10/09
Size DOES matter.
juliebugsmama at 11:21AM on 03/10/09
Ben and Jerry's is the worst of the worst. A sell-out brand if there ever was one. At one point, they made their ice cream with real milk from Vermont cows the right way. Somewhere along the line, they were bought out by unilever, and now their milk comes from who knows what factory, and their "ice creams" boast ingredient lists packed with stabilizers, thickeners, and texture enhancers, yet they still try and give off that hippy earthy-crunchy vibe in their packaging and marketing. Disgusting.
And remember - a pint is not a pound when it comes to ice cream. There's a thing called "overrun" - essentially it refers to the amount of air that is incorporated into the ice cream in order to give it more volume. Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's both happen to be on the lower end of the spectrum (Haagen Dazs at around 20% overrun, and Ben and Jerry's at 25% overrun - some brands go up to as much as 90%, meaning that in a given volume of ice cream 90% of it is air), but it does mean that pint for pint, you are getting 6.25% more ice cream with the Haagen Dazs than the Ben and Jerry's. And that's not even considering the fact that many of the ingredients in Ben and Jerry's are not what you would consider normal ice cream ingredients, nor the fact that half of their package is taken up with chocolate covered pretzels or stringy dehydrated strawberries.
Look at the label on Haagen Dazs - Cream, Milk, Sugar, Eggs, Vanilla. That's it. You can taste the difference!
The way Ben and Jerry's hides behind the mask of two loveable hippies from Vermont makes me sick to my stomach even more than their carageenan and guar gum-packed ice cream does.
GoodEaterKenji at 11:36AM on 03/10/09
Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Ice Cream
1/2 Cup: 106 grams
Ingredients: Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar, Egg Yolks, Cocoa Processed with Alkali.
Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Ice Cream
1/2 C: 105 grams
Ingredients: Cream, Liquid Sugar, Skim Milk, Water, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Egg Yolks, Guar Gum And Carrageenan
Almost exactly the same in terms of overrun -- one gram is about the weight of a paperclip. Ingredient list is close but not entirely the same.
Anyone know anything about "liquid sugar"?
Wally East at 11:50AM on 03/10/09
im guessing the liquid sugar is glucose or something similar to improve the mouth feel and prevent crystalisation
Edwardkimuk at 12:04PM on 03/10/09
Was anyone else reminded of "Schooner Tuna" from "Mr. Mom" when they were reading Ben & Jerry's press release?
"My fellow Americans. I am Howard Humphrey, President of Schooner Tuna. All of us here at Schooner Tuna sympathize will all of you hit so hard by these trying economic times. In order to help you we are reducing the price of Schooner Tuna by 50 cents a can. When this crisis is over, we will go back to our regular prices. Until then, remember, we’re all in this together. Schooner Tuna. The tuna with a heart."
Truff at 12:52PM on 03/10/09
@ Truff: That exact scene started to play in my head when I was reading the statement from Ben & Jerry's. Wow!
FrostyGhost at 1:03PM on 03/10/09
I'm actually surprised at how big a deal people are making of comparing haagen dazs and Ben & jerry's. Besides both brands being expensive and sold in "pints," I never thought of them as similar products, even before the B&J buyout. People buy B&J becuase they like the pretzels, marshmallow and everything else added in. Thats the novelty of their product. Haagen-Dazs brand is based on simple, pure flavors. It's a different beast entirely. Sometimes I want Phish food and sometimes I want dulce de leche, so I buy whichever brand suits my needs.
Embackus at 2:32PM on 03/10/09
i never did understand who said it would be okay to sell coffee in 12 oz packages. But then I'm still baffled by the hot dog/hot dog bun mismatch.
Seriously, going ballistic over the two "hippies" Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield bothers me a tad. What's your problem with them, that they aren't European? (and yeah, with a fake name?) Yeah, I believe B&J sold to a large corporation and that saddens me, but what does their alleged "hippiedom" have to do with the decision by a competitor to make the "pint' smaller. I think HD is doing something deceptive. There's nothing deceptive in the package ingredients listing. And there's nothing deceptive about Ben and Jerry's being started by two guys named Ben and Jerry.
I like B&J and I like what they do in the community and the world. I like HD because no one makes a dulce de leche like they do but I guess I'm going to have to give that one up, at least til prices stop going crazy. Meanwhile, er, chill?
Fluffnik at 8:18PM on 03/10/09