The Shrink-O-Tron Strikes Again: Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cereal

So I stagger bleary-eyed into the kitchen early this morning and start fixing my breakfast. And of course by "fixing my breakfast" I mean "pouring cereal into a bowl" as I sit and shovel it into my mouth while trying to figure out where the hell I am and why I'm up and eating at 6 am.

My favorite cereal this week (it changes on a regular basis) is Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Golden Honey Nut Flakes. There're nuts in every bite, if you can believe the box.

The bad news is that there wasn't quite enough cereal in the old box to fill the bowl. The good news is that I had another box all ready and waiting in the bullpen.

As I poured cereal from the newly opened box, I noticed something... different about it. Something didn't feel quite right.

I immediately dug the old box out of the trash and compared the two. Even at the ungodly hour of 6 am, my instincts were right-- the dreaded Shrink-O-Tron has struck my beloved Crunchy Nut Golden Honey Nut Flakes!

Those brigands at Kellogg's have reduced the contents from 14.1 ounces down to 13.2. Almost an entire ounce less! Son of a...

Naturally Kellogg's only used the Shrink-O-Tron on the contents of the box. They didn't use it on the price of course, which remains firmly the same.

Not only did they reduce the amount of cereal inside, they shrank the box as well. That's the new box on the left in the photo above. It's now visibly narrower than it was just a couple of weeks ago.

It would not surprise me if the box looked like this in a couple of months. 

When is this crap going to end? When will companies stop with this sneaky underhanded tactic and just raise the price of the goddamned box? Why can't they just level with us and say, "Look guys, we're very sorry but due to increased production costs we're going to have to raise the price of the cereal by a few cents. We'll try not to do it again for a year or so." If they did that then consumers nationwide would understand and say, "Well that sounds just fine."

But no. Instead of raising the price they keep it the same and give us less product. And they surreptitiously put it in a smaller box, hoping we're all too enamored with the Royal Baby to notice. It's sneaky, sleazy and underhanded. It's something Communists would do. Are you all Commies up there in Battle Creek, Kellogg's? 

Well screw you, Kellogg's. Screw you and the horse your batch*t insane, enema-loving founder rode in on!