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It’s a pretty expensive meal too, especially with all the boxes being just half filled. :-(

by kwertyoowiyop 3y ago

quickthrower2 3y ago
And oats are very cheap
LeoPanthera 3y ago
"Sold by weight, not volume."
- sokoloff 3y ago
  And often containing less weight at the same cost via shrinkflation. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/23/business/shrinkflation-prices-grocery-stores/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/23/business/shrinkflation-pr...
  - refurb 3y ago
    I swear most of the comments on HN become this weird “how can I respond to this statement and connect the conversation to something negative even if it’s completely off topic”.
    - mattgreenrocks 3y ago
      Skepticism cosplays as wisdom on the internet.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      It hardly seemed off-topic, given the misinterpretation of the topic introduced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37540818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37540818
- cwillu 3y ago
  I know this isn't what you're saying, but I'm amused at the notion of a hypothetical person thinking that containers could leave the factory filled to 120% of volume so that they're at 100% of volume after settling, if only manufacturers would stop being greedy or something.
  - mysterypie 3y ago
    Is it really that expensive or impractical to settle the contents of cereal boxes (and potato chip bags) on the assembly line so they aren’t 20-40% air? I assumed that the fill level was something that manufactures co-evolved to — based on what their major competitors are doing and what they can get away with.
    - cwillu 3y ago
      Yes, it requires sustained mechanical agitation for a period of time that you can't really accelerate without severely damaging the product. Add to that that you really can't start settling the product until _after_ its in the container. Maybe you oversize the bag, leave it open while settling (keep in mind that the atmosphere in the container is frequently not room air), before finally sealing and trimming off the excess? Or you could skip all that and just ship the same amount of product, using the same amount of packaging, and save the energy input and cycle time needed to pre-settle the product.
    - chongli 3y ago
      Potato chip bags are deliberately inflated with nitrogen. This preserves them (oxygen causes chips to go stale) and it protects them in shipping. The air pressure acts as a shock absorber. If they tightly packed these bags with product then a lot of it would be crushed into tiny crumbs. It costs them money to ship a bunch of air to the stores. They can’t fit nearly as much product on a truck this way. They do it because it improves product quality, not because they’re trying to rip people off.
      - lacrimacida 3y ago
        There’s one thing to not have chips bags tightly packed and another to have them a tiny amount of chips and the rest nitrogen filler. I think manufacturers got a bit too greedy at this point…
bell-cot 3y ago
"half filled" is an extremely generous description, when the contents of the breakfast cereal box are carefully engineered to be ~95% air by volume, no matter how well-settled. (Yes, I know about Grape-Nuts, and other cereals with far higher densities.)
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Correction, with ~real numbers: - A few web sites say American (breakfast) cereal boxes are roughly 12" x 8" x 2" - so 192 cu. in., or ~3,150 cu. cm. - Similarly, the product weight for a standard box of Cap'n Crunch(tm) cereal seems to be ~12oz. - so ~340g. (Frosted Flakes(tm), Cheerios(tm), and many others look pretty close to this.) Divide those figures, and we get ~0.11g/cu. cm. The actual density of carbohydrates is ~1.5g/cu. cm. So, with a generous allowance for settling, I should have said "engineered to be ~92% air by volume". More interesting: A couple searches say that wheat, from a farmer's PoV, is currently selling for ~$5.75 per bushel. And the standard wheat bushel weighs 60 pounds. So an "all-grain" breakfast cereal should yield ~80 12-oz. boxes from that $5.75 bushel of wheat...or about 7.2 cents per box. Far, far better to be a big corporate middle-man than an American farmer or consumer, eh?

It’s a pretty expensive meal too, especially with all the boxes being just half filled. :-(

quickthrower2 3y ago

And oats are very cheap

LeoPanthera 3y ago

"Sold by weight, not volume."

sokoloff 3y ago
And often containing less weight at the same cost via shrinkflation. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/23/business/shrinkflation-prices-grocery-stores/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/07/23/business/shrinkflation-pr...
- refurb 3y ago
  I swear most of the comments on HN become this weird “how can I respond to this statement and connect the conversation to something negative even if it’s completely off topic”.
  - mattgreenrocks 3y ago
    Skepticism cosplays as wisdom on the internet.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    It hardly seemed off-topic, given the misinterpretation of the topic introduced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37540818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37540818
cwillu 3y ago
I know this isn't what you're saying, but I'm amused at the notion of a hypothetical person thinking that containers could leave the factory filled to 120% of volume so that they're at 100% of volume after settling, if only manufacturers would stop being greedy or something.
- mysterypie 3y ago
  Is it really that expensive or impractical to settle the contents of cereal boxes (and potato chip bags) on the assembly line so they aren’t 20-40% air? I assumed that the fill level was something that manufactures co-evolved to — based on what their major competitors are doing and what they can get away with.
  - cwillu 3y ago
    Yes, it requires sustained mechanical agitation for a period of time that you can't really accelerate without severely damaging the product. Add to that that you really can't start settling the product until _after_ its in the container. Maybe you oversize the bag, leave it open while settling (keep in mind that the atmosphere in the container is frequently not room air), before finally sealing and trimming off the excess? Or you could skip all that and just ship the same amount of product, using the same amount of packaging, and save the energy input and cycle time needed to pre-settle the product.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Potato chip bags are deliberately inflated with nitrogen. This preserves them (oxygen causes chips to go stale) and it protects them in shipping. The air pressure acts as a shock absorber. If they tightly packed these bags with product then a lot of it would be crushed into tiny crumbs. It costs them money to ship a bunch of air to the stores. They can’t fit nearly as much product on a truck this way. They do it because it improves product quality, not because they’re trying to rip people off.
    - lacrimacida 3y ago
      There’s one thing to not have chips bags tightly packed and another to have them a tiny amount of chips and the rest nitrogen filler. I think manufacturers got a bit too greedy at this point…

bell-cot 3y ago

"half filled" is an extremely generous description, when the contents of the breakfast cereal box are carefully engineered to be ~95% air by volume, no matter how well-settled. (Yes, I know about Grape-Nuts, and other cereals with far higher densities.)

bell-cot 3y ago
Correction, with ~real numbers: - A few web sites say American (breakfast) cereal boxes are roughly 12" x 8" x 2" - so 192 cu. in., or ~3,150 cu. cm. - Similarly, the product weight for a standard box of Cap'n Crunch(tm) cereal seems to be ~12oz. - so ~340g. (Frosted Flakes(tm), Cheerios(tm), and many others look pretty close to this.) Divide those figures, and we get ~0.11g/cu. cm. The actual density of carbohydrates is ~1.5g/cu. cm. So, with a generous allowance for settling, I should have said "engineered to be ~92% air by volume". More interesting: A couple searches say that wheat, from a farmer's PoV, is currently selling for ~$5.75 per bushel. And the standard wheat bushel weighs 60 pounds. So an "all-grain" breakfast cereal should yield ~80 12-oz. boxes from that $5.75 bushel of wheat...or about 7.2 cents per box. Far, far better to be a big corporate middle-man than an American farmer or consumer, eh?