Slack Fill

There are things we won't recall
Feelings we'll never find
It's taken so long to see it
Because we never seemed to have the time
--Phil Collins

If you're a consumer products maker, then you're interested in strategies that allow you to pass along price increases to customers in ways that they don't notice. One such strategy is 'slack fill.'

Slack fill involves charging the same price for less product put in a container that looks more or less the same as the previous container that held more. For example, price hasn't changed on the standard box of Ritz Crackers. Unfortunately the standard box now contains 13.7 oz of crackers rather than the old 16 oz amount. At $2.50/box, consumers now pay 18.2 cents/oz compared to 15.6 cents/oz previously, which amounts to a 17% price increase.

I can think of few consumer product categories that have not been touched by slack fill over the past few years. At the grocery store with my brother last weekend, I noticed that even the standard bag of Kingsford charcoal is down from the old 20 lbs to about 15 lbs. Lighter to lift but heavier on the wallet.

Slack fill tends to work until buyers notice absurdly large packages compared to amount of product inside (think deodorant). At that point, producers are likely to resize the standard package or perhaps the product itself to change the frame of reference.

Ritz boxes are already in transition. As the number of crackers goes down the height of boxes as been reduced in order to insure a snug fit. The box now appears noticeably wider than tall. Would think the next step is to either significantly change the standard package amount (e.g., drop to 8 oz) or resize the cracker itself.

As long as consumers care not to monitor cost/oz, games of slack fill proceed in an inflationary world.