Häagen-Dazs, owned by ice cream giant Dreyer's, just announced that they're "downsizing" their pints of ice cream. In a truly Orwellian use of language, the erstwhile standard 16 ounce pint will now be an, um, 14 ounce pint.
Häagen-Dazs said that rising material costs have forced this change. They can't raise prices of their ice cream and remain competitive with Ben & Jerry's and other premium ice creams. So they've opted to shrink portion sizes. In a letter to their franchisees, the company wrote
Our ice cream is created with only a few select, simple, all-natural ingredients.
That is why we searched six years for the perfect variety of strawberry for our Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream and why we paid four times more over the last two years for the raspberries that make it into our Häagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet.
And we wouldn’t think of soaking the raisins for our Häagen-Dazs rum raisin ice cream even a minute less than the 60,480 minutes (42 days, actually) that they currently luxuriate in their rum baths.
Why not? Because then it just wouldn’t be Häagen-Dazs.
Apparently, it "just wouldn’t be Häagen-Dazs" if they did an A3 with their staff to figure out how to reduce the 60,480 minutes of raisin soaking without compromising flavor. Or if they worked with their supply chain to reduce the cost of growing, picking, packing, and shipping strawberries or raspberries so it wouldn't cost four times more. (More than what?)
Sadly, the company operates with the old Price = Cost + Profit mentality, so the only option open to them is to redefine a pint as 14 ounces.
Does that mean that they'll report their earnings in the same way? Will they redefine their net income such that $0.87 in profit become $1.00?
Evolving Excellence
When my previous employer was acquired by a large global IT company it was explained:
Cost = Price - Profit.
Price is set by the market. A company listed on the exchange has made certain promises to investors on what ROI they can expect, so that is (relatively) fixed as well.
I found it a useful way of looking at the issue: if the company can meet this cost level we will be successful. If not, we need to improve, or have issues long-term.
Posted by: Daran | 12 March 2009 at 03:11 AM
The standard "half gallon" of ice cream often isn't a full half gallon anymore either!!
Posted by: Mark Graban | 12 March 2009 at 04:46 AM
They are not alone. I've noticed many brands have 'downsized' their containers recently. Also, this is not limited to ice cream.
Posted by: Ken | 12 March 2009 at 07:55 AM
At least the end result may result in more 'lean' customers. Sorry... couldn't resist! ;-)
Posted by: Ron Pereira | 12 March 2009 at 08:00 AM
Seems to me that if you only put 14 ounces in the carton, then "it just wouldn't be" a pint.
As Kevin pointed out, Häagen-Dazs is owned by Dreyer's. Dreyer's is in turn owned by Nestle - the big Swiss outfit - who took about than $13 billion to the bottom line in 2008 in spite of the outrageous cost of raspberries.
Nestle is very good at creative writing. A quick read of their annual report will tell you how they have built 19 factories in China not to get cheap labor mind you, but as an act of social conscience. They are trying to help develop the poor folks in the People's Republic.
It should come as no surprise that the management of Nestle is very, very top heavy with Sales and Marketing folks who seem to have a knack for this sort of creative language.
Posted by: Bill Waddell | 12 March 2009 at 11:04 AM
You can reduce it to nothing if you want. I quit my Haagen Dazs addiction months ago.
Posted by: nicole | 12 March 2009 at 05:05 PM
What happened to customer loyalty!
They are just lining their pockets yet again.
Its a shame really I quit my addiction last year when I found Sheer Bliss ice cream and from what I can tell they are still using pint cans!
Posted by: Julia Adams | 13 March 2009 at 05:27 PM
Ice cream is certainly a headline grabbing example, but you'll find this downsizing in cans of tuna, boxes of cereal, and Pepsi has recently started selling (in my neck of the woods anyway) a 12 oz bottle instead of the 20s that had become so ubiquitous.
Although I am not aware of anyone still referring to any of these new sizes by the orginal name. A 14oz "pint" is truly over the line.
Posted by: Greg Thompson | 17 March 2009 at 11:24 AM