Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Would you pay more for less Coke?

I am re-posting this post to let you be aware about the problem of the high cost of sugar since "soft drink's" uses a lot of sugar that is detrimental to our health.

New Coke Mini can cost a lot more than a regular-size can. Still, maybe having the option of a smaller size is progress.

Posted by Teresa Mears on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:34 PM
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is outraged. The new 7.5-ounce Coke Mini is selling for 50% to 140% more per ounce than the regular 12-ounce cans.
Coke to Fleece America by Charging More for Less,” trumpets the CSPI, with a subhead reading “$8.50 a gallon for small cans of water & high fructose corn syrup?”
Umm, is $4.50 a gallon for larger cans of water and high-fructose corn syrup somehow a good deal?
We are trying to muster up the proper amount of outrage over the Coke Mini (we certainly agree with the CSPI on a lot of other issues, like the problem of misleading labels on food), but we just can’t do it. As far as we’re concerned, we will happily pay more for smaller portions. In the long run, paying more for less may be better for you.
The new Coke Mini is available in Washington, D.C., and New York and is supposed to be for sale in the rest of the United States by April. Coke touts on the can the fact that the drink has only 90 calories, as opposed to the 140 calories in a regular 12-ounce can of Coke.
Somehow this is supposed to be more appealing than the existing 8-ounce cans with 100 calories, which don’t seem to be very popular (and also usually cost more than the larger cans).
Coca-Cola also is planning mini cans of Cherry Coke, Sprite, Orange Fanta and Barq's root beer, which we should see on store shelves sometime this year.
The 90-calorie, more-expensive cans of Coke follow the popular 100-calorie snack trend, in which manufacturers package various unhealthy snacks into 100-calorie packages and charge more for them per unit than they do for large packages. Who can argue that eating 100 calories worth of Oreos is NOT better than eating 300 calories’ worth?
While we’d rather see smaller portions for lower prices, smaller portions for higher prices are at least a welcome step away from the “supersize” everything trend.
According to a 2002 report by the the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity, getting a lot more food for a little more money may benefit restaurants, but it isn’t good for our health. There is strong evidence that, when presented with smaller portions, people eat less.
The report, titled “From Wallet to Waistline: The Hidden Costs of Supersizing,” concluded:
Value marketing (providing more food for less money) is a technique that is profitable for food companies, but that results in large portion sizes and contributes to overeating. . . . (Value marketing) encourages the customer to spend a little extra money to purchase larger portion sizes and leaves the customer with the impression that s/he has “gotten a deal.”
For those of us looking for value, that presents a dilemma: better value or smaller portions?
Are we going to go out and buy a pack of Coke Minis? Of course not. No way would we pay $8.50 (P399.50) per gallon for high-fructose corn syrup. We are going to drink water. And the high price of those 100-calorie snack packs just reminds us we’re better off not buying any Oreos at all.
What dilemmas do you face when you weigh value against portion size or packaging? Are you more likely to buy the Coke Mini than you are a regular-size Coke? Or the 100-calorie snacks instead of a larger package? Where would you like to see smaller portions?

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