A frustrated Aussie who complained about the "tiny" chips in his container of Pringles has reignited "shrinkflation" claims that have plagued the brand for years, but the company maintains there's a good reason for the change.
The popular snack, which is sold in major supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths across Australia, is one of the many products eagle-eyed consumers are claiming to be part of the growing trend of items shrinking in size while being sold for the same or higher price.
In a Reddit post, the dissatisfied customer shared photos of the contents of a 53g can of Sour Cream & Onion Pringles, including one of himself holding up a chip from the container. "I didn't believe it till now, these Pringles are tiny," he commented.
Pringles currently come in 134g containers and the smaller 53g cans, which are sold for about $5 and $2.50 when not on special. Previously, a regular-sized tube of Pringles contained 150g of the famous stacked crisps, which contain around 40 per cent potato while the rest is made from wheat and vegetable flours.
Pringles on 'shrinkflation' claims
According to Pringles, the brand's chips and cans were made smaller back in 2016 to fit in with a new manufacturing facility that has different equipment to the original US factory, which caused controversy at the time. "Five years ago we decided to move the Asia-Pacific region's production to our new, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Malaysia," a spokesperson for the company told Yahoo News Australia.
"As our Malaysia plant was already servicing our Asian market, we decided we would standardise production and roll out the same Pringles recipe, chip size and packaging from this location for Australia and New Zealand."
One thing that's not shrinking
A big problem that customers noticed with this change, however, is that prices didn't drop accordingly. Pringles claimed higher production costs associated with the new cans forced a price increase to help cover some of these overheads.
"What's great about the new plant is that we'll have more flexibility with launching new products and flavours that are tailored to our tastes, which over the last five years has been loved by our consumers," the spokesperson added, but didn't say if further shrinkage had occurred to Pringles during this time.
Regardless of the reason, shrinking product sizes and rising costs are increasingly becoming a concern for cash-strapped Aussies trying to stretch their household budgets. Photos and videos of shrunken staples from dishwashing pods to popular cereal brands have been widely shared online, with many consumers accusing big brands of going too far in the name of profit.
The equipment we use in our new home in Malaysia is a bit different to our sister factory in the US – this means that the way we make Pringles and the size of the packaging has changed. You'll notice that both the chip and can are a little bit smaller than the US versions to fit in with the production facility.
The 134-gram range, however, will remain the same for now, with Pringles confirming it is working towards developing and implementing more sustainable packaging across the whole range in future. As for now, the reduced 53-gram can variety will be on all major supermarket shelves from May 2024.
Marketing. Pringles is advertised in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland with the slogan "Once you pop, the fun don't stop" along with the original slogan "Once you pop, you can't stop!"
“We're excited to introduce revamped cans delivering the same snack with less packaging.” On top of the reduced can size, as part of Pringles' ongoing efforts to improve sustainability, the plastic lid was also removed from the 53g can back in 2022.
A change has been introduced to one of the most iconic canned snacks in Australia with Pringles announcing it will be shrinking the size of its 53g can. But save the shrinkflation outrage for another time — there will still be the same amount of chips in it.
One of the major reasons Pringles changed its logo is to drive relevance from the audience. The current version is a sleek, flat design that truly represents and balances people's wants. While the previous versions were more traditional, the current is modern.
The biggest culprits are the holy trinity of addictive junk food — fat, salt and sugar. Around a third of every Pringle by weight is the sunflower and maize oil used in cooking, nearly 5 per cent of each crisp is made up of sugar and dextrose (another type of sugar) and, of course, there's the salt.
Procter & Gamble's initial argument was that, no, Pringles were not potato chips because they didn't "contain enough potato to have the quality of 'potatoness.'" (Is that even a word?) They also argued Pringles didn't resemble the shape of a potato chip and were more along the lines of a "savory snack."
1. How are Pringles® made? Pringles® are made with real potatoes that we form into a 'Pringle shaped potato dough', we fry and season the crisps just right before placing them into our iconic can. The seasoning system we use is a waterfall process (seasoning gets sprinkled on) vs a tumbler like other chip processes.
1. The original name was very different. Pringles were first marketed as "Newfangled Potato Chips," but the name didn't stick. No one is certain where the name "Pringles" originated, but some think it could be an homage to the patent-holder for potato processing equipment ... or it could be the name of a street.
The Food and Drug Administration decided in 1975 that Pringles could only be called “chips” if they provided a note on the can saying they're not made with real potatoes. Pringles didn't want to do that so it named its product potato “crisps.”
Pringles' slogans, “Once you pop, the fun don't stop” and “Once you pop, you can't stop,” are amongst the most iconic catchphrases the world has ever known.
It turns out, that empty space in your chip bag isn't just air — it's Nitrogen gas, which is meant to stop the chips from breaking in the package as well as expel air, which actually turns the chips stale. There's even a name for the emptiness — “functional slack-fill.”
The defense was creative—since Pringles were less than 50% made of potatoes, the company claimed they weren't actually potato crisps nor did they have the shape of a potato chip.
This logo redesign was crafted by a new design studio, Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR), with Pete Matthews leading the design charge as Pringles' Brand Design Manager. These new features were chosen to modernize the logo and bring the iconic emblem to life.
Sorry for any disappointment, but please know that we've made a change to the recipe. The artificial flavor has been removed from the cheddar cheese seasoning, and the artificial dye has been removed from the base crisps, making the color less orange. Thanks for stopping by!
In addition to dehydrated potatoes, rice flour and wheat starch, Pringles contain a host of ingredients designed to get your taste buds and the hunger centre of the brain tingling. The biggest culprits are the holy trinity of addictive junk food — fat, salt and sugar.
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