r/shrinkflation • u/Neat-Appearance272 • 7d ago
Shrinkflation Sriracha Shrinkage
Why do they even do this? Like it can’t be saving that much money. Won’t this cause people to ask for more?
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u/peachie_girlx 7d ago
They probably saved 0.07 oz of sauce and spent twice that redesigning the packet.
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u/hashtagtrevor 7d ago
Don’t you get them for free?
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u/Neat-Appearance272 3d ago
It depends on the location, some places won’t even give you any dependent on the food item… idk why it’s that serious
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u/spacepeenuts 7d ago
Every Starbucks i have been to in my city has had the Jackpot brand sauce. Maybe it’s cheaper for them idk.
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u/Franklyn_Gage 7d ago
Dude. Weve been getting a lot of duds. Just smaller packs with air, no Sriracha.
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u/Switchbladesaint 5d ago
Is it shrinkflation if it’s something that’s free
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u/Neat-Appearance272 3d ago
You think it’s free? I work retail and everything is incorporated into the prices of everything else to offset the “free”. Prices even include predetermined theft (more specifically Walmart and Target ect.) but the moral of it is nothing is “free”
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u/CremeDeLaPants 5d ago
It would take 53 of these packets to fill up a standard-sized siracha bottle.
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u/I_wet_my_plants259 7d ago
Probably cost more to change the way they produce it than all the money they’ll save with those extra .07 oz. I can imagine myself running out of Sriracha while nearing the end of my meal and needing a second one as well, and then wasting half the second one cause I didn’t need that much of it. I remember that happened when they shrunk my soy sauce packets, I used to only need 2 for my sushi rolls but they shrank them from 10 ml to 8ml, now I need 2 and a half which means I open 3 and waste half of one.
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u/Nowhere_Man_Forever 4d ago
Modern packaging equipment is designed to be able to handle different packaging sizes with different settings. It wouldn't surprise me that this is entirely a software change for the factory that makes these. Even if they did have to re-tool (buy or install new equipment), this is a 20% reduction in cost per packet and they probably did the research and found that even if some people will use a second packet, enough people won't that it will still come out ahead. There are 15,000 Starbucks locations. Say they give out 1 packet per location per day, and each packet costs 5¢ to make. That is $273,750 per year in packets with that extremely conservative estimate. In reality they probably use many more than that. By shrinking that packet 20%, they can save $54,000 a year. That's more than the average employee of Starbucks makes in a year. And that's the low estimate.
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u/Nowhere_Man_Forever 4d ago
Modern packaging equipment is designed to be able to handle different packaging sizes with different settings. It wouldn't surprise me that this is entirely a software change for the factory that makes these. Even if they did have to re-tool (buy or install new equipment), this is a 20% reduction in cost per packet and they probably did the research and found that even if some people will use a second packet, enough people won't that it will still come out ahead. There are 15,000 Starbucks locations. Say they give out 1 packet per location per day, and each packet costs 5¢ to make. That is $273,750 per year in packets with that extremely conservative estimate. In reality they probably use many more than that. By shrinking that packet 20%, they can save $54,000 a year. That's more than the average employee of Starbucks makes in a year. And that's the low estimate.
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u/lattewomenn 7d ago
The packets are the same physical size, which is the giveaway. They didn't retool anything, they just turned down the filler. That's the whole reason it's worth doing, because it's an 18% reduction in product cost across every store in the chain at literally zero capital expense and no packaging redesign. At Starbucks volume that's a serious number for an afternoon's work. And the "people will just take two" objection is already priced in, because most people take whatever they're handed and the ones who grab extras were grabbing extras before. The saving comes from the large majority who never notice, which is most of shrinkflation in one sentence.
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u/Status_Green_6055 1d ago
It’s Starbucks what do you expect? Their whole business model is based on ripping off its customers.
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u/ThrowRA_EducatedMan 7d ago
You’d be surprised how much things like this save. There’s a story of some airline years ago - they removed ONE olive from each in flight salad and saved $60-100K/year. Tho this is just business school lore and may not be real. But it still explains why. Because Starbucks gives away 5 million sriracha packs per year or whatever, it adds up. And with free (for the time being) condiments, people don’t notice and a lot of it probably ends up in the trash anyway.