The horrors of slack-fill

The old slack-fill marketing tactic is back. It's not shrinkflation, but a variation on the concept. It looks like this for valentines candy:

Lots of healthy fresh air is
packaged with the product, 
at no extra cost!


It’s a clutch decision. You buy your sweetie the Valentine’s Day box. You know the one. Red shiny cardboard, heart-shaped, fancy-looking and boasting an assortment of milk and dark chocolates. One is made by Russell Stover, the other the classic Whitman’s Sampler (which, incidentally, are owned by the same company). It sets you back about $7.99 at Walgreen’s or your oh-geez-is-it-really-Feb.-14 store of choice.

The box is about is about 9.3 inches wide and 10 inches tall, a good size. But inside the Whitman’s box are 11 candies. Inside the Russell Stover? Nine candies.

If you take out the molded plastic insert, the chocolates occupy less than half of the box.

It’s something called “slack-fill.”

“That’s when a manufacturer deliberately over-packages a product using a package substantially larger than the amount of content inside,” consumer advocate Ed Dworsky said.
Beware of those clutch decisions. You might get slack-filled upon.



By Germaine: Consumer advocate

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