Something heartbreaking happened with one of my favorite beverages. I'm not the only one affected by this, some persons are still discovering the heartbreak but, it is out there to be felt by everyone who is a fan of the drink.
Sometime at the end of last year, I walked into a store and purchased two packs of my favorite fruit drink, got home and popped them in the refrigerator pending dinner time. Dinner time came and I poured myself a glass of juice with super high expectations in anticipation of that feeling I always get from my first sip. The disappointment I felt was second to none. It had been watered down, to a ridiculous level. Did they think we’re fools? That we wouldn’t notice and stop buying or they expected us to just deal with it.
This drink is called Chi Exotic. It is made of pineapple and coconut nectar, easily the best thing that could grace anyone’s tongue at any given time of the day; it was gorgeous. If you don’t shake it before you pour, you’d be left with some extra thick juice with the settled ingredients at the bottom, it was that good. Now, not anymore. We are left with a sorry excuse in it’s place and I have completely stopped buying it.
This atrocity is known as skimpflation. Basically, this is when companies reduce the quality of their products and services while same commodities remain the same price in most cases, in order to cut cost and increase their profit margin.
A lot of companies do this during an economic downturn in order to keep the ball rolling. It is funny to me because cutting back on the quality of your products to keep sales going feels counter productive. Your quality is why people fuck with you in the first place, why would you even touch that? People would rather deal with an increase in price over a drop in quality. This move scores zero in customer acquisition and retention.
Craziest part is the price of this juice actually did increase in price by 70%. We are practically paying more money for some for some shitty quality.
Sometimes, companies would reduce the size of an item to cut or control costs; this is actually known as shrinkflation. I know lots of biscuits that used to be five to four pieces inside now reduced to three. But, I’d take a reduction in size and quantity over anyone messing with the quality.
This has happened to lots of commodities we grew up enjoying, all because the state of the economy kept depreciating. Another heart breaking one has to be cracker biscuits. This biscuit used to be so rich and delicious, it used to have some oily feel to it that boosted the taste and richness in the mouth; now crackers is so dry and annoying.
I used to eat 10 to 15 crackers at a go but I can’t even finish one and be happy with myself now. Foodies are really going through a lot in this county; maybe god help us.
Capitalism is killing us, companies no longer care about customer satisfaction, everyone wants to maximize profit. Forgetting they can actually do both if everyone can just chill and stop trying to buy private jets.
Anyways, what do I know about running a production company? But I do know a thing or two about consumerism and this is doesn’t cut it.
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