The Hotdog Conspiracy

now sold in packages of 5

 

I was doing my weekly shopping and thought, hey, why don't I get some hotdogs.  They weren't on sale, but they are a quick and easy meal.  I know which ones I like, and I know where they are in the store.  I quickly go there and pick up a package.

What!

There is something completely strange here.

There are only 5 hotdogs in the package.

Five?

I had to count several times.  I looked around, thinking this must be a hidden camera segment.  Apparently not--but I have checked YouTube repeatedly, just in case.  So, naturally, I checked the buns.

Six, as usual.

Quite the conundrum.

When I was a child they sold hotdogs in packs of twelve and buns in packs of 8.  I thought that was strange, but once I learned a little math, I figured two packages of hotdogs and three packages of buns and all was well in the world.  If I do that to today's problem I get six packages of hotdogs and five packages of buns.

Someone at Schneider's wants you to eat 30 hotdogs.  30 hotdogs!

Obviously, this is another example of lowering the quantity while maintaining the price.  (see my previous post on this phenomenon    http://theoctagonalpeg.blogspot.ca/2013/09/new-and-improved-means-smaller-and-just.html) This seems pretty easy when you do it to liquids, or things that are sold by weight, but why do it to hotdogs.  They could have made the hotdogs smaller.  I probably wouldn't have noticed, and might have appreciated the better fit to the bun and the reduced calories.

What to do?  I guess I should consider the possibilities.

Possibilities

1. I buy them all and store them in my freezer.  I don't know if I actually have that much space.  I am also not sure I can eat 30 hotdogs in one year.
2. Buy one package and either throw out the last bun or keep it frozen until the next time.  Two problems with this.  I usually eat two hotdogs at a time.  That means one hotdog will go to waste and two buns will stay frozen for a long time.  It is also likely that I will forget about these things and buy new buns the next time.  Soon my freezer will be overloaded with mismatched freezer burnt buns.
3. I forget the whole thing and buy something healthier to eat.  And that's what I did.

What's my Size?

Japanese beer comes in many sizes

 

Who determines what size something should come in?  I mean, who decided that we need four litres of milk in three bags?  Whose idea was it to sell hamburger buns in packages of eight?  What genius determined that my bag of spaghetti should contain 900 grams of dried pasta?

Now, I know, I have ranted about the size of things before.  Mostly, though, I was complaining about how they have made everything smaller.  I still feel quite strongly about that injustice, but this rant is different.  I am not complaining, just wondering.

I was making spaghetti earlier this evening when I noticed that the weight of the pasta package was 900 grams.  Why didn't they just make it a full kilogram?  Dried pasta is not exactly a high ticket item.  I stopped to reconsider.  I considered maybe they were selling it in pounds.  Nine hundred grams comes close to two pounds.  I checked the label, and no, actually it equals 1.98 lbs.  I don't know who should feel more ripped off.

If you really think about it, how do you decide what is the right size to sell something?  Is there a certain quantity that we can not exceed?  Is there a certain price we won't pay for something?  Considering how popular Costco and Price Club are, neither one of those things can really be true.  If someone is willing to buy a 20 litre container of mustard (for whatever price 20 Litres of mustard must cost) then you could almost sell them 20 Litres of anything....couldn't you?

Some of this must be historical.  Anything sold in sets of twelve must be connected to a bakery.  This still doesn't explain the hot dog bun versus hotdog package...but don't get me started.  I am pretty happy with the 24 of beer, but since I have seen 28 packs and 32 packs, this number seems kind of arbitrary.

Beverage companies decided that cans of pop should be 355mL.  It seems to be the right size--but then why is the coke company trying to foist those 700mL bottles on us?  I guess they thought we needed more, so instead of screwing around they just said double.  I guess nobody bothered to suggest triple.

Maybe none of this should really bother me, maybe I should let is slide.  The problem is that I live in a country that uses the metric system.  The whole beauty behind the metric system is the nice, useful, easily manipulated numbers it produces.  They still sell butter by the pound, but at least they print the metric numbers on the label.

I guess somebody made the decisions, and that is what we are left with.  If somebody had asked me, I might have been able to convince them to choose another size.  My pasta would come in 1Kg bags and there would be five tennis balls in a can instead of three.