Irresponsible Companies - Post Cereals

I had a revelation last night at the grocery store. I was buying cereal, and decided I would just check the price per ounce while I was standing there after my wife asked which brand was cheaper, and surprisingly noticed that the price per ounce for the small boxes of almost all Post cereals was cheaper per ounce than it's larger cousin, the "Family Size".

Doesn't this go against the grain (no pun intended), in that the larger, economy size should be cheaper? Less packaging, not to mention greener for the environment? That was how I always understood the value of larger bulk purchases. So, is this a family penalty now? If you want to buy less packaging and be "greener", then it costs you more money?

I compared other brands - Kellogg's cereals behaved exactly as I would expect them to. The bigger the box, the cheaper per ounce it was. So, is this just a cheap trick to try and make more money during the recession? How many people "assume" the larger economy size is the better deal? I hate to think how long Post may have been trying to pull this off. It would appear to be a sneaky attempt to trick the populace. I know that during tough times earlier, rather than raising the price of good, companies started shrinking the packaging size, so they could maintain the same price.

That was a big shock to everyone, and caused outrage - several decades ago. They are doing the same thing this time, but it seems almost normal, and it doesn't appear anyone is trying to be sneaky about it - as everyone has seen that game before. But, this is a new game - and I was a little surprised. Does this make Post Cereals irresponsible? Is this worse that shrinking the packaging? It seems a little deceptive to me.

I understand prices go up, when oil goes up, because energy costs go up, transportation costs go up, and therefore your cereal in the morning goes up. I would rather just see a price increase than all of this smoke and mirrors to make me think the price isn't going up. I understand - costs are costs. If you aren't making money, then you are losing money, and nobody can do that forever. One of the hardest things that I do is set prices for the bakery. It's hard to put a value on what we do, keeping track of all of the ingredients, shipping costs, calculating price per batch, price per pound, price per treat. It's always a moving target. Plus, we have to pay rent and electricity in there too, not to mention the labor it takes to make a batch of cookies.

I guess that is just my opinion. If my cost of goods goes up to the point I need to raise prices, would you rather see me raise prices, or shrink packaging, or charge more for economy sizes?

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