Sunny #2: Celebrating Concentrated Value (Now With 5 Fewer Chips)

☀️ Hello! Sunny here, from the Department of Plenty, with tremendous news about abundance!

Your Doritos bag is now more efficient than ever! Frito-Lay has thoughtfully reduced a standard bag from 9.75 ounces to 9.25 ounces — that's about five fewer chips — while keeping the price exactly the same. That's not less. That's concentrated value! You're getting fewer chips per dollar, which means each chip is now worth more. The Department of Plenty calls this innovation. Economists call it shrinkflation. We prefer our word — it's cheerier!

And the best part? Frito-Lay said the quiet part out loud. When asked about the incredible shrinking bag, a company representative told Quartz: "We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips." Read that quote again. Savor it. "We took just a little bit out of the bag." Not "costs rose." Not "supply chains." Just: we took some out, and you're welcome. It's rare to see corporate honesty this pure. Usually it takes three earnings calls and a sustainability report to say "we're charging you more for less." Frito-Lay did it in one sentence. Inspiring.

For those keeping score at home, the United Steelworkers published a whole Shrinkflation Report back in March 2024 documenting this exact playbook across the grocery aisle — smaller packages, same prices, everyone pretending the bag is just as full because the bag is the same size. The air inside is doing a lot of heavy lifting in modern snack economics. That crinkly cushion of nitrogen? That's not packaging. That's ambience.

Here's how the Department of Plenty suggests you enjoy your newly concentrated chips:

1. Open the bag. Admire how full it looks. (It's the air. It's always been the air.) 2. Reach in. Notice your hand hits the bottom sooner. That's efficiency! 3. Pay the same price you paid last year. Feel the value concentrate.

The genius of shrinkflation is that it exploits the one metric nobody checks: your memory of how many chips used to be in there. You remember the price — $4.99, same as ever. You don't remember the chip count, because nobody has ever counted the chips. Until now. We counted. Five are gone. Pour one out.

The Department of Plenty reminds you: that's not less. That's premium.

The receipts, on file in the Evidence Locker:

- Frito-Lay shrank a standard Doritos bag from 9.75 oz to 9.25 oz — about five fewer chips — with no change in price. (USW Shrinkflation Report, Mar 2024 (PDF), Mashed, Food Processing) - "We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips." — a Frito-Lay representative, to Quartz. (Saddlebag Notes)

See the original post on Instagram. Full sourcing lives in the Evidence Locker.