Geez. Who would want less "stuff" anyway? Hope they fail. I lean towards double stuff blondes, myself. At least you can still purchase original oreos!

How about they bring back Hellmann's mayonnaise's old flavor, Heinz hot dog relish (finally found a good-tasting substitute brand, but I have to drain off a half-jar's worth of mustardy liquid) or Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes. Carr's decided to change the frosting center to cover only 2/3 of the cookie, and they didn't taste very good anymore. Although, I did buy some recently at Costco, and they seemed to have reinstated the amount at least closer to what it used to have. But the greed sure is getting ridiculous, I agree.

It's not so much "greed" as balancing the price people will pay. They want to hit the sweet spot of package size and price to sell the most goods for the least cost.

At least the Simply Heinz tastes like real ketchup. :) Look what they did to Pace Picante! It's tomato sauce now! When they change the ingredients to fiddle with the price, I get really mad. Okay, I'll pay more for a smaller package if you'll just give me the real deal!

OTOH, I saw an ad for the Oreo Thins and I think the point is for the people who prefer less middle. I do know people who scrape it off and throw it away, then eat the cookies. They think the cookies are better than ones that were never sandwiches, and I think it must be the residue from the middle, so maybe the Thins will be perfect for them.

I had to take my Vitamin C from Trader Joe's back, though. "Chewable Oranges". They mucked around with the formula and now they're really hard and really sweet, and I'm pretty sure they changed dextrose into plain sugar on the ingredients. UGH. I asked. The manager seemed to think it was about cost. I can deal better if it's an improvement for some reason that I just don't like. :-P to mucking with the ingredients for cost!

It's not so simple. The employees who make the ingredients, make the products, transport them, work in the stores that sell them. etc, all want annual salary increases. So too for the employees of all the suppliers for all those companies. The companies have shareholders, they want reasonable profits. Consumers want lower prices, or at least limits on increases.

Who has to back off so that everyone else gets what they want? Can everyone get what they want?

I actually think those Oreos would be handy for baking. Scraping out the filling for crumb crusts is tedious and leaving it in can be overly sweet. A small amount of frosting to cookie ratio would be nice.

Everyone should be checking the cost by weight. Most grocery stores have it calculated right on the price tag, usually price per ounce. I guess some people don't pay attention but I don't think they are fooling many people. I don't consider it a scam - people just have to think a bit.

I do pay more for convenience. It's usually not the cheaper option but my time has value. Things like individually packaged peanut butter packets and other items that would be hard to pack in lunches otherwise. Or pre-portioned nuts so I can quickly pack them and easily keep track of my calories. So I do think there is a market for packaging alternatives.

I'm one of the weird ones--I can take 'em or leave 'em, but I scrape and toss the middle.

This from one of our local recently totally renovated regional chain supermarkets. I've been going there for many years and no one asked for my opinion. It is a big improvement but there are of course, some things that should have been considered. I realize they can't please everyone, but when I brought one thing up during the 'soft opening', (fresh salad section is on one side of the huge produce department and packaged salads, etc. and refrigerated dressings are clear on the other side. PITA when you want from both sections) I got a lengthy rationalization on why they planned as they did. Told me about the customer research, etc. and I told him that no one asked me and I spend the majority of my grocery money there.

“We must meet the needs of Baby Boomers, Gen-X-ers, and Millennials,” he said. “They know what they want in a store, and are the best resource. We’ve pulled in a greater amount of data and research, beginning with a shift to online feedback, compared to focus groups or phone surveys.” Really cranky after reading that - they seem to have overlooked the number of seniors who shop there.

They could sell a wafer only "Oreo" for the people that don't like the center stuffing.

I just bought them! I liked the idea of having an Oreo with less calories.

I never look at prices per item. I stick to a weekly budget and buy whatever I need or want.

If I were on a more strict, than yes this would bother me.

In the case of this cookie, did they have to create all new machinery?

It's not "corporate greed," it's our greed. We don't want to pay more, and the companies must make money, so they either raise the prices or reduce the size of the container a little bit at a time and keep the price the same. Who remembers when ice cream came in a half gallon package? Now it's 1 3/4 quarts. How about a one pound can of coffee? Nope.

One thing I think we all noticed is everything with chocolate either shrunk or almost doubled in price. That's because the worldwide price of chocolate literally exploded a few years back. Those nickel Hershey bars I got as a kid are now almost $2.

My tube of sensodine toothpaste did not last as long.

wonder why?

Shrink the packages ... oh, but think - how we've been eating too much, and they're helping us diet!

Ice cream ... cookies ... yogurt ... cheese ... etc. - take your pick - smaller quantity of food per package.

So, we have to buy more packaging to get the same amount of food.

A good bit of the packaging then goes into landfill - used to be called "dump" until we went upscale with language - but "landfill" is a double "four-letter" word.

As for recycling the packaging, possible for some of it ... think of the effort required to collect, sort, haul to the processor, re-process, then haul to the food processor for re-filling, then haul to distributor and again to the retailers. All of which uses more precious energy, much of it adding to not only pollutants, but global warming.

Some say we're coming close to risk of destroying the earth, but they're wrong - it's largely mankind that requires more particular environment, along with some of the other inhabitants of the earth that have more precise requirements for continued life.

The bugs, cockroaches and a number of other forms could continue happily if the world were to become uninhabitable for mankind and some of the other more restricted life forms.

ole joyful

Snidely's explaining what is going on. There are so many middle men, and they all need a salary too. See what happens to prices when all the minimum wage hourly rates double.

chi83 I don't quite understand your logic. A wafer of 1/2 thickness would require double the wafers to get the same volume for a crumb crust. That would require double the scraping of less product but wouldn't the residue you mention be essentially the same? Increased price, double the effort for the same outcome is NOT what I'd consider more convenient, handy or of any value. I do agree with you on convenience items and I do pay for the prepared fruits and things. More expensive but time for me now is more valuable than before, plus I don't waste as much. Granted, I could waste more of an item and still come out ahead money-wise but not time-wise.

SnidelyWhiplash hit it right. Everyone wants THEIR wages, profits and the like to go up and THEIR costs to go down but don't think business should profit. I can accept reasonable profits and I don't like windfall profits, except to me!

I sure won't suggest there is no corporate greed out there. Absolutely there is, but it's not always corporate greed as much as consumer gullibility. People want to "feel good" about everything. They are offended by words so you have to pick the exact name and commercials can't offend anybody. People happily pay more for less, and ironically they'll buy gigantic when they often can't use it when they can "feel good" about "saving" money. Sam-boy really knew the greed of the people. Give him credit for that. People will walk into his club, pay more per unit for things, pay extra for the privilege and to really rub it in, stand in line TWICE to check out, all for the "feel good" of thinking they are saving money! He figured out that people will pay any price for the illusion of saving money.

Cynic, I see your point but I was basing it off of the description which sounds like there was only a tiny bit of filling. If it's half the amount of filling, I agree with you that it's the same thing at more expense. But if it's less than half, then I still think it might be easier as I could just process the entire cookie instead of scraping. I haven't seen them though so I can't really say.

And do ya really think that you're getting a "real" money-saving bargain by shopping the end-caps in Walley-World?? Somebody honed in on the marketing strategy of making you "feel" like you're getting a great bargain, no matter what the item is, and what better than placing those items on the end-cap where they can't be missed!

Some very interesting responses, Christopher I completely disagree with your philosphy. I'm not greedy, I just want my money, my HARD earned money to actually buy something! Wow, some are even complacent about the fact that we're paying a lot more for a lot less whether it's Oreo's or lunch meat. It's ok, justify it there's always an excuse that seems rational. But the reality is upper management and CEO's need their big fat raises and that is greed. The average worker hasn't seen a viable raise in years and most no longer have medical benefits to boot.

Years ago, I used to make an all in one dish with diced pork chop, chicken Rice A Roni and Pace Salsa. One box and 4 chops would feed a family of 6 and still have some left over. I had a request to make it for a family thing not too long ago and it was obvious a single box wouldn't have fed 4 much less 6 and forget left overs. Seriously? How much smaller can stuff get?

And how in the heck can anyone eat an Oreo (blonds are my favorite too) without the middles? Are they still even Oreo's then?