Shrinkflationer Buys Doubling Capacity
Boo. Hiss. It’s difficult to avoid clicking on yet another shrinkflation exposé.
The dastardly practice of the devilish food companies who reduce their portions yet keep the price to us the same as for the larger packets.
This time in the firing line of rip-off shame, Big Food bandits Nestle.
Their British festive staple of a box of chocolates, Quality Street, gets the treatment, again. They duly receive a press savaging.
This repetition of seasonal downsizing though, wasn’t all that caught my sales eye. Here’s one other item of intrigue;
This year major investment in new technology by Nestlé – the world’s largest food and drink company – is helping to speed up production, using new techniques to encase individual chocolates in the familiar brightly coloured foil and cellophane “twisted” wraps. Seven new state-of-the-art machines are twice as fast as the old counterparts, wrapping up to 750 chocolates per minute compared with about 380 for the outdated equipment.
I couldn’t help but applaud the sales-ship of the packaging machinery vendor.
By how much does you newest product enable your prospects to outperform what they currently have?
To boast a doubling, as here, is quite something. A claim that can earn a healthy premium price tag. An order for seven sounds like a whale.
Not only is this increase startling – you can happily say ‘double’ even though technically 197% – but the way it is unleashed is key too.
That they are “twice as fast” is interesting. Have they just made the hoppers and all twice as big? No, it seems not.
They now use “new techniques” which they themselves promote as wrapping “sweets in a more advanced and modern way”.
Perhaps the true innovation here.
Yes, capacity is increased, but what I appreciate about this small tale is how this leap comes about.
A tip well-worth taking into your own current product upgrade.
As an added footnote, here’s a related pic for presentations this week or so in Australia or England.
Nestle also happen to now own a chocolate bar, originally made back in the day by York-based Rowntree, called Yorkie.
Cricket hero Ben Stokes was asked what fuelled his astonishing 3rd Test Headingley Ashes innings;
“a knock-off Nando’s and Yorkie Raisin & Biscuit”.
Using a rough approximation of the chunky bar’s wrapper design, you can pretty easily create your own superhero winning message slide. Although sadly, as England just lost any chance of regaining The Urn, I have recognised that fact here to give you an idea…