Author Topic: Signs of trouble ahead ?  (Read 3501 times)

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Offline tp4tissue

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Signs of trouble ahead ?
« on: Sat, 04 July 2020, 21:31:58 »
Tp4 has been buying the same toothpaste for 20yrs.

Opened a new box today, They've clearly reduced the thickness of the tube walls.

If they have to go this far...  Makes me worried... what if some producer cuts corners on something important. medical equipment, or car parts, etc


Ya'll see anything out of the ordinary ?



Offline jamster

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #1 on: Sat, 04 July 2020, 21:50:09 »
The world already ended when they moved from metal toothpaste tubes to plastic. Most people just didn't notice.

Offline noisyturtle

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #2 on: Sat, 04 July 2020, 22:11:41 »
One thing I'm still pissed off about is when Häagen-Dazs reduced the size of their containers from 500ml to 460ml and still charged the same price. Tropicana did the same thing.

Offline Leslieann

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #3 on: Sat, 04 July 2020, 22:16:01 »
If your business doesn't look at new technology and materials you won't be in business long.
This is also how you know a business/industry has entirely too much power/monopoly, they get stagnant, sit on their a$$ and do nothing but litigate against anyone making innovations.

As for cutting corners and things history is littered by it, particularly by car manufacturers.
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Offline fohat.digs

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 09:48:37 »
The guy who thought up the idea of putting a large bubble on the bottom of a jar got a huge bonus.

You could now have a jar that looked exactly the same (until you turned it over) but with a reduced volume of product.
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Offline nmur

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 10:16:56 »
One thing I'm still pissed off about is when Häagen-Dazs reduced the size of their containers from 500ml to 460ml and still charged the same price. Tropicana did the same thing.

super common BS unfortunately
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

Offline pixelpusher

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #6 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 10:33:07 »
As long as my keycaps don’t get thinner I’m not too worried.   :p :p

Offline JP

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 11:03:59 »
Oh this reminds me of Breyer's and their frozen dairy product which some people assume is still ice cream.

https://www.mouseprint.org/2013/01/21/breyers-converts-ice-creams-to-frozen-dairy-desserts/
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Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #8 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 12:16:30 »
Is it corner cutting or partially environmentally motivated improvement?  If they're investing in a way to use less plastic to do the job just as well that's a positive in my book, a toothpaste tube should never experience significant pressure and by the time you're old enough to grow long nails you should have the coordination to not stab the tube with them so why does it need to be thick.

On the other side we started making ventilator parts in steel but after not long they were spec'd in POM (plastic) instead, that can't be a good thing in terms of durability.  At least POM is recyclable, unlike any toothpaste tube I've seen.
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Offline Leslieann

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #9 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 20:26:38 »
On the other side we started making ventilator parts in steel but after not long they were spec'd in POM (plastic) instead, that can't be a good thing in terms of durability.  At least POM is recyclable, unlike any toothpaste tube I've seen.
Pom can be made with an anti-microbial coating, is long lasting and never rusts.

As for longevity, that may be true but in certain settings (military and heath-care in particular), longevity can be way down the list of importance.
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Offline Kelseer

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #10 on: Sun, 05 July 2020, 21:16:05 »
Is it corner cutting or partially environmentally motivated improvement?  If they're investing in a way to use less plastic to do the job just as well that's a positive in my book, a toothpaste tube should never experience significant pressure and by the time you're old enough to grow long nails you should have the coordination to not stab the tube with them so why does it need to be thick.

On the other side we started making ventilator parts in steel but after not long they were spec'd in POM (plastic) instead, that can't be a good thing in terms of durability.  At least POM is recyclable, unlike any toothpaste tube I've seen.

In my opinion, it's not really environmentally motivated, though some times it's a happy coincidence. Having worked in FMCG for almost a decade, its all mostly a focus on the drive for squeezing out higher gross margins/profits & clamping down on costs. Some times it's driven by volatile commodity costs, but in other instances.... = higher EPS = happier shareholders = bigger bonuses.

On ice cream, I'd say this is driven by higher dairy prices, (over the last few years dairy has been increasing in cost) so they figured they'd cut volume (and also lower calories/container). I don't think its due to synthetic food starting to take off (just yet anyway), (i.e scientifically lab grown proteins as a supplement to farm grown protein) think tp4tissue post an excellent article about that a while back.

Offline Sintpinty

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #11 on: Sat, 11 July 2020, 09:55:21 »
They did the same thing with golden grams i think. "value size" means lasts for four days

Offline fanpeople

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Re: Signs of trouble ahead ?
« Reply #12 on: Sat, 11 July 2020, 19:07:43 »
Yeah I know what you mean, pretty sure my regular hooker sets 2 minutes on her alarm instead of the 3 that I pay for.