#skimpflation

Last month, as Valentine's Day approached, Brad Reese bought a bag of Reese's Mini Hearts. And his big heart was broken after he realized those little hearts weren't made with the classic combo of milk chocolate and peanut butter that Reese's is known for.

Instead, Reese learned, these mini hearts were made with "chocolate candy" and "peanut butter creme," cheaper concoctions that he felt were far inferior to the real deal.

"It was not edible," Reese told The Associated Press. "You have to understand. I used to eat a Reese's product every day. This is very devastating for me."

Disgusted, Brad Reese threw the whole bag of candy in the trash. And he launched a campaign against The Hershey Company, the owner of Reese's brand. Ever since, the company's executives have had a reason to eat their feelings (with, presumably, heaps of junk food at their disposal).

It'd be one thing if Reese was just some random person. But Reese is the grandson of H.B. Reese, who created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups back in 1928. The Reese family sold their company to The Hershey Company way back in 1963, more than a half century ago. But the iconic candy still bears Brad Reese's family name, and Reese clearly cares a lot about the brand. He is sometimes photographed wearing bright orange shirts with the Reese's logo on his chest.

On Valentine's Day, this scion of the chocolate, peanut-butter dynasty published an open letter on social media to a Hershey's executive, and, given the source, it ignited a firestorm of media coverage.

"My grandfather, H. B. Reese (who invented Reese's), built Reese's on a simple, enduring architecture: milk chocolate + peanut butter. Not a flavor idea. Not a marketing construct. A real, tangible product identity that consumers have trusted for a century," Reese wrote. "But today, Reese's identity is being rewritten, not by storytellers, but by formulation decisions that replace milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut‑butter‑style crèmes across multiple Reese's products."

In other words, Brad Reese is accusing The Hershey Company of skimpflation. Skimpflation is when, instead of simply raising prices, companies skimp on the quality of their goods or services to save money — and hope that consumers either don't notice or don't care.

And let me tell you, the decline of brand loyalty is earned.

My obsession with peanut butter cups has only been stopped by the simple lack of good peanut butter cups. Reeses cups have become sickly sweet and chalky, unreal cups have lost their beautiful snap and dripping filling, Justin's quality control has fallen to the wayside..

Lunchables were my school meal of choice, and then they had to change the recipe to the point of inedibility. My favorite boba tea place? Prices up more than 40 percent, the pastries so doughy and gross I can't even swallow them. Lays: burnt and chewy?? Canada dry changed their ginger intensity and got sweeter. Even calypso lemonade has lost it's smooth mouth feel and bright flavor, tasting closer to country time than a melted snow cone.

About 2 years back? I bought a pair of gloves for a family member of neiman marcus. So of course, they arrived uncushioned, rattling around in the box without even a proper baggie and I kid you not, SCOTCHTAPED TOGETHER.

My favorite clothing brands have forsaken me. Tums have forsaken me. My safe foods have forsaken me. Even douglas has forsaken me in my never ending quest to drown in stuffed animals. KITCHENAID FORSOOK ME.

I don't really have a point to this. I'm just mad.

It feels like I'm being mocked every time I see a news article talking about consumer spending habits.

Yesterday’s look at shrinkflation was a necessary discussion, since it is something that consumers can—and should—be able to detect on their own. With little or no sleuthing, any one of us can either read or calculate per unit pricing. The results may not exactly be good news, but what choice do we have other than simply not buying the product?

Besides, we can rest assured that if and when the factors of production come down, you can bet that the manufacturers will reverse their strategy and say “Now! 33% More Free!” The product will be back to its usual size, but still at the same price. Color me cynical. I’ve seen it too many times.

But then there’s another crazy thing going on in some quarters, and it is far more devious than any shrinking of the package. This one is much harder to detect, although there are times when you might notice the change. It is called “skimpflation,” and is the result of a company cutting corners. How we consumers react once we do find out is the behavioral aspect to consider.

And one company is making headlines recently because of it, one you probably never thought would do such a thing. Whole Foods, the healthy and pricey alternative to Kroger, Walmart, and the rest, was busted for making some major changes to its Berry Chantilly Cake, and consumers took them to task on it across social media.

Whole Foods went on to issue an official statement, saying they had “aligned the flavor profile, size, packaging and price” of the cake slices. Ostensibly, this move was made to standardize the product offering across their more than 500 stores.

That’s corporate BS for “We cheapened the product so we could make more money.”

The temptation is very real for companies to look for cheaper ingredients. In this case, replacing fresh fruit and cream with a jammy compote was pretty obvious, but in other cases, you would have to do a deep dive into the ingredient list. Substituting one type of oil for another may appear innocuous, but may also bring cost savings to the maker.

Major breweries have already been doing this for years, using “adjuncts” in the brewing process, which is code for substituting rice and corn for more expensive barley malt. They can all be used to brew beer, but German beer purists would have a heart attack if they knew. They didn’t pass the Reinheitsgebot, or Beer Purity Law, in 1516 for nothing. Heck, they didn’t even allow yeast to be added to the barley, hops, and water until 1906.

You may not be enough of a coffee snob to detect when the java you are drinking is sometimes a blend of Arabica and Robusta. It dilutes product quality, because Arabica—which is more expensive—is highly regarded for its smooth taste. But Robusta stretches out the supply of the better beans, little different from adding a little water to the spaghetti sauce when unexpected guests show up at dinner time.

Companies who do tweak their formulations do so at great risk. If consumers find out and don’t like it, they can easily go viral with their social media outbursts. It’s not at all like things were before the internet gave everyone a microphone.

Skimpflation also extends into the service sector. I have seen it especially at hotels. If you have a multi-day stay, you probably won’t see housekeeping unless you specifically request it. And those toiletries once found in every room have been replaced by pump dispensers mounted on the wall in the shower. While this practice originated in California because of a law intended to curb landfill waste, it quickly spread across the nation as hoteliers realized that they could do things more cheaply.

As for Whole Foods, they caved and are returning their popular cake to its original ingredients. Good for them. But happy endings like this seldom happen, because once a product has been modified, it usually stays that way.

Do any of you remember reading about the New Coke fiasco of 1985? Following an uproar over an announced product change, the company then brought back original Coca-Cola, which they called Coca-Cola Classic. But what they did not tell anyone is that the revived product had one major difference: they substituted high fructose corn syrup for regular cane sugar. Corn is in abundance in the US, and is much cheaper as a sugar than the real stuff.

They’re still doing it, and I don’t hear anyone complaining.

The jury of public opinion has to weigh in on these matters one by one. In the case of Whole Foods, their well-off customer base complained loudly, and they were heard. That may not always be the case for other products. And we just have to along with it, or find something else to buy.

Dr “No Rice In My Beer” Gerlich