Tuesday Tirade: Lower Price is Not Necessarily a Good Thing

This has been bugging me for a while, and I was thinking I need to post more often...

For a number of health reasons I've been trying to incorporate more natural and high fiber products/complex carbs into my family's diet.

After trying about a jillion (or so it felt) different kinds of bread---and being shocked at the tiny amount of fiber in most whole wheat breads---I found one at HEB my family liked and that I, the occasional and totally random nutrition Nazi, approved. HEB's Glycemic Health bread--a healthy wheat bread with a whopping 2.5g of fiber PER SLICE.

It even, unlike many of the more expensive wheat breads, came in a sandwich-style option. You know, the really square bread with the thinner crusts. Since the girl has taken to pulling the crusts off her sandwiches and throwing them away, thin crust means more of her lunch makes its way into her face.

Lately I haven't been able to find my bread at all. I was upset, and finally decided a couple weeks I was going to stop by the store when I had a few minutes and ask the manager about it. Just to make sure I didn't look like an idiot, I went to check the bread aisle first. And found what I was looking for... sort of:



It had the same name, but a few key differences. It was, indeed, cheaper than the $2.38 I was paying before my bread went away for a revamp. It was also roughly 2/3 the size. The OLD sandwich loaf was 24oz and more slices since it was thinner cut. This little gem is 16oz and has fewer slices because it is no longer a sandwich-style loaf. It's also got the thick crust my kid won't touch with a ten-foot cafeteria spork.

A little math reveals that:

A) It is now more expensive per ounce, the package just has fewer ounces:
$1.59 / 16oz = 9.94 cents per ounce
$2.38 / 24oz= 9.92 cents per ounce

B) The idiot person who created their new shelf tags either lied on purpose or was dyslexic*, because there is no way that I can find that makes a 16oz loaf of bread that costs $1.59 work out to 6.63 cents per ounce. This math does work IF you keep the price and base it off the older, 24oz loaf size.

*I can totally say this --- my baby bro, the AwesomePenguin, is dyslexic, so I am not just making crap up here. It COULD happen.

I know, I know, it's just bread.

And I've watched in horror as coffee sellers have done the same thing for years now.

A coffee can from 1970 is the same size as the one I can buy today---but mine will have 3-5 fewer ounces in it than the one from when I was a kid.

This does not mean it is right. It also means I have to buy TWO loaves of bread for the week.

$3.18 vs $2.38

Somebody at HEB wanna step up and tell me just how that works out to a new lower price?

Yea, I didn't think so.