In Search Of The Unbroken Cracker
by John WeckerleÂ
Not long ago, we received a link to this story about Wal-Mart’s crusade to cut costs of food, including pressuring manufacturers to reduce package size. Here’s another one I’d like to see them tackle: reducing the amount of broken crackers, chips and other products that represent a potentially substantial waste of food and money.
To illustrate, we purchased a box of Triscuits at the Edgewood Wal-Mart, brought them back, and opened them up. Crackers were removed by gently inserting the hand into the free space in the box and carefully tipping crackers into the hand to avoid accidental breakage. They were sorted into two piles – broken and unbroken – and the broken pile was weighed using a common kitchen scale.Â
The result? Two ounces (exactly, on our scale, although admittedly these are not precise scientific instruments) of the twelve ounce box were broken. That’s about 17 percent of the total. Now, given that the intended use for crackers is to put things on them and serve them, we take the position that we got 17 percent less than we paid for. We’ll probably do this with other products, especially chips and other crackers, when we next buy them.
Big deal, you say? Consider this: Estimates seem to vary, but by all the estimates we reviewed, cracker sales in the U.S. probably substantially exceed $3 billion. Triscuits alone appear to account for more than $100 million. And that’s just crackers: by some estimates, snack food sales in the U.S. may exceed $20 billion. Seventeen percent of that number (which may be conservative; we’ll know after we check a bag or two of chips) is a whopping $340 million!
This isn’t a scientific study, but it does make one think. If Wal-Mart is successful in convincing manufacturers to shrink their packaging, and if this has the effect of less breakage during transport, their efforts may have unintended and unconsidered benefits to consumers. Of course, this may mean better bang for the buck for consumers, but it could also mean a somewhat lower demand for manufacturers’ food products. It will be interesting to see which way this goes.
3 Responses “In Search Of The Unbroken Cracker”
I guess it isn’t food PC, but you could always dip the fractured bits into a jar of peanut butter … as long as there’s no double-dipping.
A question. Why do you suppose peanut butter is not packed in tins or plastic containers with four corners? Less space taken during shipping and a lot easier to get at without suffering from the dreaded nut butter knuckles.
Tradition maybe? You know how people can be about tradition… especially about product associated with childhood memories. Once you get transgressive with tradition, why not go all the way and look at all the packaging options?
There are probably a number of reasons. One may be ease of manufacturing: for many containers, round is probably the cheapest way to go – especially when there’s a screw-top involved. Also, according to what I could find, peanut butter is vacuum sealed to prevent oxidation. Under a vacuum (as under pressure), the forces are equally distributed around a cylinder, which means less likelihood of any particular point buckling inward.