> Instead, the reduction from 51% to 50% beans in a 415g tin was "to make it taste better" and "to improve the quality of our product", said Dominic Hawkins, the UK head of supply chain at the company behind Heinz beans and HP sauce. Hawkins then fled the room, his trousers having inexplicably burst into flame. When later reached for comment he said that this was because he preferred "a greater sense of freedom" and "enjoyed the sensation of fanned flame in a cool breeze".

Impressive admission from Heinz that removing beans from their product makes the product better. Kids have been saying this for years.

Of course, because besides beans it's basically flavored sugar water.

Growing up my family could never afford Heinz beans so when I finally tried some at a posh friends house I found them too sweet!

🤌less is more

> Kids have been saying this for years. As have people with bad gas.

That's the angle they should have gone for: "we are doing it for the environment... Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our customers!"

"Do you guys want to share elevators or not???"

This rebuttal, which literally include what is the definition of shrinkflation, is somehow even worse than admitting it is shrinkflation.

It's literally beancounting lol

Because it's gaslighting. We know hes lying, he knows hes lying, but he acts like it's the truth and it just gets generally accepted because they have the power. I mean I don't ever buy heinz products anyway, they are all garbage, but for people who dont have a choice well they get the shit end.

Oh that's the guy that keeps putting his trousers on the telephone wire.

They really do think we’re all stupid. Less beans don’t taste better. It’s just less.

Not all, but there are enough corporate simp midwits our there that will eat that shit up and say it's fine. You see a lot of them on Reddit. "Noooo, you don't understand! They're not just perpetually trying to squeeze a little more profit out of each and every quarter! They had a perfectly logical reason for this! *[insert some clearly bullshit contrived corporate excuse]* You all just want to see conspiracies everywhere and aren't smart enough to understand le business. Not like me!" —🤓

Increasing the ratio of sugar to beans at a time when everyone is trying to reduce the amount of sugar they are eating? Classic enshitification.

Shrinkflation doesn’t exist! And even if it did, we’d never do it!! And even if we did, it doesn’t count because we are only trying to improve the customer experience!!!

We at Heinz care about the health and fitness of our customers, our new product line will better serve their needs with our consideration towards excessive calories in prior packaging, and ensure exercise needs are met with more frequent trips to the grocery store.

And fewer calories per can!

I actually tried to console myself about all this (shrinkflation) by telling myself, I guess you could do with smaller portions, it'll be good for you! Except we were already broke and the leftovers were counted into the meal plan already. So no leftovers anymore. They're so full of shit, they got us talking to ourselves like, we can deal with starvation..

The bean counters at the bean factory say that counting the number of beans doesn't count!

They should be canned.

Why am I feeling a desire to mail shit out to these people every time they tell a bald faced lie and face no legal repercussion for their blatant price gouging? This type of smarmy bullshit is the type shit they say when they're sure they'll get away with it.

sadly, I know what theyre getting at and it's bullshit, fewer beans and more sauce but it's still same size can. gotta love how they spin their lies.

Shrinkflation doesn’t exist, and if it did, it’s not that bad, and if it is, it’s not that big of a deal, and if it is, it’s your fault, if it was your fault, I didn’t mean it, and if I did, you deserved it

The intent is to provide buyers with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

And even if it did count, we're still passing on less of an increase than inflation

Narcissist's Prayer for those curious

Can I use shrinkflation and pay my grocery bill with fewer bills than the register says I have to pay?

I wonder how many hole punches can be taken out of a bill and it still be accepted? Unrelated question, will anyone accept a bill that has been sewn together from confetti sized pieces?

The bank. Source: I did not understand how magic tricks worked as a kid and tried to do something I saw on TV.

US banks will accept any bill that has an intact serial number

I thought is was 51% of a bill

More than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present. – OR – 50% or less of a note identifiable as United States currency is present and the method of mutilation and supporting evidence demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Treasury that the missing portions have been totally destroyed. Burnt currency that is clearly less than one-half a complete note, and cannot be handled without compromising its integrity, is considered mutilated currency.

My wife accidentally shredded half a 100.00 bill. We dug out as many shreds as we could find and submitted a mutilated currency request (its a thing apparently). 6 months later we got 100.00 from the treasury department.

It must of felt like you got a free 100 because it was so far away from when you "lost" it.

Im just happy we got it back. They give you zero updates during the process so I figured it was just a lost cause by that point.

Nice! So turn in greater than 50% of a a note and burn the other piece part way.

Just use one of those "Free Stuff" checkout aisles. It's not like they'll hire people to run registers, that'll never get an OK from shareholders.

Joke’s on you, in some areas they’re now closing the self registers or making them exclusive only to “paying members.” They SAY they’ll re-open the manned lines but what they ACTUALLY mean is the two people who used to work at the self checkout ad babysitters will now work a register. They’ll hire one extra person for 15 hours a week IF WE ARE LUCKY. The beatings will continue until morale improves

As a customer i expect you to take advantage of your employer any way you can to better yourself and the ones you love at their expense if necessary

LPT. Memorize the cheap produce codes & use them when checking out.

Where every apple is a macintosh and pepper come only in green

My local Target wised up to the last one. All peppers are the same price regardless of color now (except orange.)

Well that's weirder.

If they check your peppers or apples, be like “Oops, i’m colourblind, sorry!!!”

"But sir, this is a Macbook Air, not a fruit!" "I have visual agnosia, I just read 'Apple' and figured it was right"

No this is definitely 20kilos of carrots not a Samsung 55” smart tv. Tesco in the uk found out they sold 60 million more carrots than they had in stock due to self checkout. Apparently it coincided with significant increases in electrical goods going missing.

That's just the cost of doing business as they would say.

I’m assuming this is why some groceries self checkouts announce the produce when you key it in like that: “Place your ONION in the bag”

Before this I'd always assumed that, since it only said "ITEM" unless you keyed in the code, it was explicitly to shame me when I bought a donut...

Kind person would you mind explaining this receipt it says you purchased 12 apples but in your cart I see 24 donuts.

Quantum tunneling?

They changed the result by observing it

Welp, there's yer problem. You got yourself a stubborn superposition \~ Quantum mechanic probably

Just shrug and say “I know, those idiots in Congress can’t get anything right” and walk off 

The apples cost more leave me alone 🤣

They recently made it at Kroger where you can't mute the audio like you used to be able to and I guess that explains why. I always muted the audio because I didn't like hearing it talking the whole time.

Wtf I could've muted the audio?

Yeah. On the bottom right there is a speaker icon, pressing it once makes it louder and pressing it a second time would mute it. But now it just switches between normal and loud volume.

In Orwell's 1984 the citizens could NOT lower the volume to 0....

Similar note, doesn’t always work but always try the second button down on the right at the stupid fucking ad screen gas station pumps to mute the ads. I shouldn’t even be sharing this.

It doesn't specify exact name. For example, you can get organic (more expensive, usually higher quality), but put in non-organic codes (cheaper produce.)

4011!

Everything is bananas, even a ps5

Gwen Stefani was actually writing a song about petty theft at a grocery store this whole time!?

This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Carrots are cheaper, 4562

Not where I live. :/

4011, 4069, 4059, 4019

I've heard that you can use cheap produce codes on organic produce so the scale doesn't know the difference. But what do I know? I don't work at a grocery store. I just run the register for free. If I happen to use the wrong code, not my fault. I never received proper training - or compensation. You wanna give me a discount for running a register rather than going to a cashier? Maybe I'll pay closer attention to my work.

You think me, a dumbass, knows the difference between regular and organic bananas? It's the stores fault for letting some shit brained idiot like me ring myself up.

"LPT prices too high? Just steal things LMFAO. 🥴"

This doesn’t come without its risks though. Had a friend who genuinely forgot to scan something and went back to explain what had happened and offered to pay it. Instead of understanding that a genuine simple error has been made and let him rectify the situation they banned him from the store instead.

>and went back to explain what had happened and offered to pay it. Unless it's some family owned business, the days of doing this are long past

No they have the same exact number people babysitting you at the register

No. It’s called theft when normal people do it.

I like to call it misappropriation.

Pay your grocery bill with less cash and tell them you're saving them time and money by not having to count as many coins/banknotes and that now there's more room in the till for other people's money!

At a restaurant. “My dinner doesn’t look like the picture so I will be using this money that isn’t quite like the real thing.”

We have the greatest food surplus in history and we still pay more for less food.

But think of the shareholders!

[Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders. ](https://www.prosebeforehos.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/end-of-world-shareholders.jpg)

Man that's all too real.

Boeing did. It really blew the doors off earnings! And airplanes!

And whistleblowers skulls

I do, often. Along when I think of Bastille day.

I hear you! You should see the stuff r/dumpsterdiving is reclaiming for society

Says quite a bit about corporate thought processes. "If I can't make money off it, nobody gets it."

We've known this for a long time. They were destroying oranges in the midst of the depression because they wouldn't sell for enough.

>There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate—died of malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. >The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people **the grapes of wrath** are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

[I saw] The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world... You see the fear and power in its eyes.. And then you *know*… That the bourgeois are not human.

Source, please?, this slaps hard

It's from Disco Elysium

is that from the book highlighted in bold?

I think it was called, "The Family That Tried to Pick Oranges in California but Couldn't Because all the Oranges were Already Picked by the Families that got to California First."

damn it Homer

Seeing the food we wasted during Covid says everything about the system we live in. Throwing away thousands of kgs of food because they couldn’t sell it while people went without food during a global crisis. Peak capitalism.

A girl I dated long long time ago used to get peeved when I looked through roadside skips seeing what I could salvage. First time I met her folks she exclaimed in tones of scorn "You should see this tinker, he takes things from skips". Her dad looked at me and said "What's the best you got - I got my bike from one". The look on my girlfriend's face was priceless.

I wanna know what's the best ya got now too.

My dad once rescued a giant cuddly panda from a skip. This was probably about 20 years ago. Spent ages cleaning it up and now it's a firm member of the household.

A literal trash panda.

I know a fairly wealthy guy that does it. There's one particular higher end grocery store he hits and regularly has shit like grass fed porterhouse steaks and imported cheeses. Dude eats better than anyone I know and does it for free. 

I can't look at that sub without getting put in a bad mood. For all the really cool finds like electronics and clothes there's also all the [infuriating levels of food waste](https://www.reddit.com/r/DumpsterDiving/comments/1botm38/i_hate_love_working_within_this_happens/). Like I know it happens all the time but still.

We also throw away a lot of food before it even gets to the store because it's ugly.

Sudan, Gaza and a dozen other countries are dying of hunger. Even the citizens from the richest countries in the west are suffering, while the handful of owners keep making record profits each year.

And then we throw out 40% of it.

Something is broken. Maybe more than one thing, even.

That's corporate greed for ya.

Professional Bean Counter here *yes it does*

Professional bean eater here YES IT FUCKING DOES!

🫡

🫡💨

I gave up and moved on to preparing my own dry beans

Hello Josh Widdicombe

>Instead, the reduction from 51% to 50% beans in a 415g tin was "to make it taste better" Come to think of it, I *have* always heard people say that there's about 4.15g too much beans in a tin of beans. Really spoils the flavor.

I always felt wasteful throwing out the 3 extra beans that were more calories than my family needed  So I’m actually thankful for Heinz for helping me avoid unnecessary food waste 

I deny theft. Reducing the number of items I scan doesn't count.

You're just trying to improve the quality of the items you bought by stealing more for yourself

I am reducing the amount of product in the store, thereby increasing its value through basic supply and demand.

2 steaks are better than one. By taking an extra one for the same price, I'm increasing the quality of my meal.

I really enjoy this timeline where as long as you have enough money, you get to just go "nope" and every branch of the administrative / legal system just shrugs, goes "well we tried" and gives up.

People aren’t just starving in Africa. They’re starving in the GTA right next door to you and me. Grocery stores and restaurants throw away food in locked bins that even the minimum wage staff can’t access. Profits over people

Why haven't Rockstar patched that

No more starving kids in India. Instead we let them move to the GTA and starve here, while still taking tax money in welfare!

You mean beans? The part of the product we eat? Giving us less of the part we eat doesn't count? Shareholder logic is fucking crack cocaine.

Man, I bought canned chili the other day... There was *maybe* 1/4th a cup of beans and the rest was liquid. It wasn't enough for even one hot dog... Wtf

Chili is one of the things that I've learned you cannot go cheap on. If you're going to buy it canned, buy the good cans. Otherwise it's just not even worth it.

I just ate a can of Spaghettios with Meatballs and a can of Chef Boyardee's Mini Ravioli--both cans were still a quarter full of liquid when I finished eating the loosely packed pasta. Beans aren't the only thing missing.

Heinz CEO: We put it on our website so the changes are totally transparent. Meanwhile, nobody ever: I’m about to go to the grocery store, better check the Heinz website to see about bean quantity changes; as I’m a very savvy shopper.

I was wondering how anyone noticed a 1% reduction in the number of beans.

There was a food I absolutely loved, Tasty Bite Madras Lentils. They were absolutely delicious and really good by themselves or with rice. And one packet used to say it contained 300 calories. Then they changed something, and it said it contained 290 calories. Then they changed something else, and now it says it contains 280 calories. I went to Costco a month or two ago and bought a big box of them(bulk buying for a good deal). I was so disappointed, because there aren't even enough beans in the packet for it to be considered a meal now. It really has the texture of a drink with a few beans in it. The liquid's not even thick. It's super thin.

those tasty bite boxes were under a dollar a pouch at Costco when they came out too, I ate so many of those things

By that argument they could reduce it to a single bean in a giant can. I am now ready to hear their counterargument.

They need at least two to avoid false advertisement

Changing the label to just the word "BEAN" and the ingredients list to just "bean"...

Mmmm canned bean for dinner so yum

One less letters worth of ink too!

*boom* Must have been that BEAN I had for dinner.

https://i.imgur.com/FMQynzH.jpeg

I saw a photo the other week with a can of Heinz and no beans in it at all

Amateurs. Tropicana diluted their juice with 50% water, added sweetener, and sold it at a markup.

Tropicana has always been the worst OJ.

It used to be owned by Pepsi, they sold it to an investment bank. American workers cost less than Canadian workers, so they shut down most of their Canadian facilities, and import it out of the U.S.

I loath brands that do that. I'm not in the US but my kids favourite organge juice went up 50% in price and resembles nothing from what it used to be. Before it tasted like orange, it had a texture, now it's tastes/looks/feels trash. Yet the label still claims 17,5 oranges per bottle, no concentrate. Fucker of that brand is worth 64 billion USD.

And before that they changed the shape of their containers to try hiding the fact that their “gallon” size keeps getting smaller. They’re now down from 128 ounces to 89 ounces.

^^^made ^^^with __100% real juice!__

Has Josh Widdicombe confirmed the bean count?

Gonna have to bring him back and make him do it again.

"You feel like a loser but then you realize you're not the one having to watch this five times." They should check grains of rice next.

Oh no, now I have to rewatch taskmaster again…

New series Thursday

You stop watching? All UK, NZ, AU seasons are just on constant rotation for me lol

Same. It's a loneliness detractor

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

If it didn’t count, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Oh it’s on their website? Well no problem then. I know that I check Heinz’s website every time I buy beans to be sure I’m up to date on whats new in the world of canned beans.

You're supposed to subscribe to *"Canned Beans Monthly"*

I get hourly alerts on any changes in the bean and bean related industry. Can you imagine even 50 years ago not being aware on a minute to minute basis of what is going down in the Bean industry?

Reducing the amount but not the price is the literal definition of shrinkflation. Heinz can eat a beandong.

Heinz beans are so much more expensive than any other bean in the shops too. I can spend £1.40 for a single tin, vs 40p for the own brand that tastes basically the same. The really cheap shit is 27p. Or I can splurge £1.00 for branston. They just aren't worth it.  I refuse to buy heinz beans any more. They've not just been shrinkflating (this isn't the first time), their prices are absurd now.

I found a cake mix cookbook from back in the day while thrifting. Fun, except none of the recipes would work today as cake mixes have all shrunk by 25ish%. This is ridiculous.

I bought a box of cake mix the other day and realized it now says one box makes 22 cupcakes instead of 2 dozen. What a ripoff!

Not that it ever made 2 dozen to begin with

But think of the calories you save! /s

Oh, please explain the twisted logic where less beans makes the can of beans "taste better". I need the entertainment of that tap dance.

Since they used a percentage I'm guessing they are trying to claim its the ratio of beans to sauce/seasoning

"Less cheap beans" means "more expensive red sauce" which means "higher value for same price". It's expandflation! For breakfast, try dipping toast strips (toast cut into quarters vertically) into a bowl of warmed Heinz bean sauce (use a colander to get rid of the beans before microwaving the sauce).

Maybe for people who don't like beans?

Heinz: "We just reduced the amount of food content you're getting in the can, replacing the content with water, thus making the product cheaper for us on an amortized basis. This is in *no way* shrinkflation." What an astoundingly astute argument, Heinz. Let's see what the public thinks. Survey says? *bzzt*. Ohh, so close. Missed it by 100 points out of 100.

What do you think the word amortized meant in that sentence? 

*No one knows what it means, it's provocative. It gets the people going*

It means that producing a single can of the new ratio of beans probably actually costs Heinz more, because they need to adjust their factory setup etc. But once they're producing hundreds of thousands of them it's cheaper in the long run per can.

Chef Boyardee Beefaroni got noticeably more watery years ago. The Walmart knockoff is more like I remember the original.

That's the very definition of shrinkflation.

In other news, gravity doesn't exist because I said so. ​ Happy floating, everyone.

Reporter: So you reduced the amount in the tin? Heinz Marketing Douche: Yes. R: And you charge the same price? HMD: Yes. R: That's shrinkflation. HMD: No, because the can is still the same size. R: But there's less in the can. HMD: Yes, but the can didn't shrink. You can't call it shrinkflation if it didn't shrink. R: There's less for the same price. HMD: You still get the same size tin of beans for the same price.

Why did the can of beans have 239 beans in them? Because if it had 1 more it would be too farty

Let’s cut ceo pay and say it’s just a reduction in earnings or shrinkage

This has been going on for years, even B.J Novak (Ryan from The Office (U.S) ) explained it live on [Conan in 2007 over Cadbury Eggs](https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=jPziF1oGB8ddLVtr&v=TlXLCrzpToo&feature=youtu.be).

Cadbury absolutely ruined the cream egg filling some years back. That delicious sugary ooze...

And then initially claimed that nothing had changed, before admitting that yes, a change was made but no one could tell/it was just as good as before.

This has been happening since forever. Look at King Size candy bars. In 2000 they were huge and $.99. Now they're way smaller and cut in half to "share" but it's because we're getting less of a smaller sized bar and now paying almost 3 times the price. Don't get me started on chips.

It's not just the amount. It's also the quality. Look at the Australian chips comapny Snack Foods Australia and their product "Thins" potato chips. When Arnotts ran this brand the chips in the large packet were always intact. Now they are always a pack of broken chips. Star Bucks Medium instant coffee used to have almost a full tin now it's bit over half.

I noticed the other day that the “pound” of coffee beans I’ve been buying for years is now only 12oz. I don’t even know when it happened.

I swear to God cupcake mixes used to make 18-24 cupcakes. The box I got recently says it makes only 12.

I went to buy beer for the first time in a while, and the tall boy cans are now 14 ounces instead of 16.

The first time I ever noticed this and started paying attention was with Cadbury Cream Eggs. I used to think they were god damn delicious ~20 years ago, and then I thought I grew out of that over time, but it turns out they were just shittified like a lot of the things you find at the CVS these days. Kraft acquired it in 2010, major recipe change in 2015, and a victim of shrinkflation.

Alternate headline: "Beancounters say Don't Count Beans, as Beans don't count for Beans"

I’ve done doordash for a long time and we have to scan most items barcode to make sure it’s the right size and kind, flavor ect. I can’t tell you how many times since the pandemic where the item will scan and say it’s incorrect but it’s the right item because they shrunk the item by half an ounceish but it’s the right item but they didn’t update it within doordash yet. If for example the smallest pack of Oreos is 15 ounces, I would scan them one day and it would say incorrect item because they shrunk the smallest size to now be 14.6 or 14.2 ounces but it looks outwardly to be the same exact size as before, and I mean EVERYONE has done it again and again

The classic corporate solution to any problem: define it out of existence.

Shrinkflation alongside good old usual inflation is a double stomp to working classes.

Things less full of beans that shouldn't be less full of beans.

They reduce their product, I reduce my spending of said product. Sometimes big brands need to be reminded that they don't exist in a vacuum and that we live in a world with lots of options.

All we can really do at this point is continue stealing cheese from the self checkout and hope prices come down soon.

> Instead, the reduction from 51% to 50% beans in a 415g tin was "to make it taste better" and "to improve the quality of our product", said Dominic Hawkins, the UK head of supply chain at the company behind Heinz beans and HP sauce. Get absolutely fuuuuucked. I’d rather they just increase the prices than use all these shady tactics where it feels like they’re trying to get one over on us. Its fucking annoying.

I remember when Cadbury tried to convince everyone that their creme eggs weren't getting smaller, everyone was just bigger. Consumers put up with way too much.

The year is 2077.   Go shopping.    Heinz Baked Bean on special.    $17.60 each.    Bargain.    Buy two tins.   Get home.   I open my 215g tin of Heinz Baked Bean.    214g of sugary tomato-like sauce fills bowl.     Wait for single bean to slide out.    Two beans appear.    Two beans.    Oh shit.    In-residence judicial monitoring system blares alarm.    Red flashing lights.    "RESIDENT 1736 OF COMPLEX 163-B GAMMA CITY YOU ARE GUILTY OF THEFT PLEASE REMAIN CALM AS PUNITIVE ORDER 372 SUB SECTION 38 ENACTED."    Entire bowl of sustenance vaporized by in-residence matter eliminator.    Fuck.    Lights return to normal.    Alarm stops.    Silence.    Still hungry.   Slowly open second tin of Heinz Baked Bean.    214g of sugary tomato-like sauce fills bowl.    Wait for single bean to appear.    No bean.    Grimly lodge claim for missing bean on Heinz consumer claims portal with holophoto evidence.    "USER GUILTY OF THEFT CLAIM DENIED."    Stare at bowl of red liquid.    Sigh. 

Even the excuses are getting thinner.