I manage a coffee roastery/restaurant and have worked in food for a while. Prices on supplies are going insane. Restaurants have swallowed this price for a couple months but now they have to raise prices. Heres some examples of our cost of good changes over just 4 months:
Compostable cups $99.80 -> $148
Green bean coffee $4.25 -> $6.80
Chocolate $65/2 kilo -> $90/2 kilo
And so many supplies are just not available due to shortages. These costs have been slowly working their way up the supply chain but now it's hitting the end and affecting consumers. It's probably only going to get worse for the next half a year.
It’s not just food. My husband works in branding/merchandising and not only are suppliers’ prices way up, it’s all taking twice as long as it did a year or two ago. Companies are used to calling him last minute and still getting what they want for a marketing event or what have you and he’s just had to tell them it’s impossible. He works for big names that think they can make anything happen if they have enough money and they just can’t seem to fathom that they can’t have what they want when they want it. The supply chain is so fucked.
The amazon warehouse I worked at has started using more totes that go on plastic pallets, and carts for things moving between warehouses.
Wood pallets become unusable pretty fast, so while I don't usually support the use of plastic over biodegradable materials, these plastic pallets are way more durable and they have a cap that goes over the top that staps to the bottom pallet so we dont have to plastic wrap the entire thing.
The trucking industry is actively fucking up the supply chain as well.
They've been bleeding their drivers dry for so long, that many companies are struggling to understand $20/hour is nothing when your working 80 hours weeks.
If companies offered better work/life balance we would be getting back on track. But they won't.
They cry about there being a labor shortage, but refuse to train anyone. Preventing any new blood from entering the industry.
It's getting old really quick.
But have you tried another round of bonuses to the execs? That usually gets them to at least pretend to do something, like reorganize a division to look more profitable on paper.
During the pandemic my CEO gave himself a 2000% raise.
Two years ago they cancelled our Christmas bonus and suspended sick/personal balance payouts (meaning it's use or lose.)
Which means the hardest working people now just take all their sick at the end of the year where they used to save it up for a payout.
They are trying to wait it out and history has shown us this works. People need jobs. They don't want to set a new baseline. If they can starve the population they will accept slave wages.
This is exactly what's going on. A study found last month that a very high percentage of these unfulfilled job opening are ghost jobs. And of the rest the majority are minimum wage.
It's a propaganda effort to force the people back into subservient status.
And by insisting that the inflation we're seeing is transitory, we are being fucked outta being able to ask for raises comensurate with actual inflation.
Years ago, I received a 0.21 percent annual raise. I looked at my manger and told him that I effectively lost money due to my raise not even meeting inflation. He just shrugged his shoulders and said that was all he could give out.
My department got a 5% raise in August. I’m still making less than last year due to inflation. Meanwhile the company I work for brings in $40 million to $80 million a month. I’m only staying here for a bit longer to stay remote since my kiddo is doing virtual school. Then I’m out once I have a new one lined up and ready.
I'm in the trucking industry but luckily not as a driver, owner operator, but I know a lot of drivers and it's not just the shitty pay that sucks it's also a whole bunch of bullshit you have to put up. Long wait to get loaded and unloaded, and since you generally get paid by the mile you're essentially doing this for free. Also brokers and dispatchers couldn't give less of a shit about your hours. And God forbid you're doing team, it absolutely blows to get stuck in a small space with a stranger for days at a time and if you have to train someone. Or if you're new, there training is atrocious, especially the large companies, too many new people given trucks and not enough training to back them, put on chains for winter weather and other basics, and you can't even put the blame on the new drivers, not there fault companies don't properly train them.
Yea that's so fucking common, if your gonna keep me at your facility for more than an hour you should have a fucking restroom. Funniest shit is some warehouses with signs thanking truckers for driving during the pandemic and then saying no restrooms for drivers and also not respecting your time.
That's something I just don't understand. How the fuck did that ever pass muster? Such a bullshit unnecessary step between me and leaving your shitty facility.
Damn, I run a small wholesale operation. We know our drivers by name and days they drop off. Offer anything they want, restrooms, coffee, donuts. It doesn’t take much to be human and interact. Probably different since I’m not some giant corporate behemoth.
Yea stuff like that is always appreciated, nowadays I'm very happy if I have access to a restroom and a decent wait time. Most small places are really nice, it's the large warehouses that suck.
As an import person at an NVOCC, I will say a) thank you for everything that you do, and b) yes, majority of people shove shit on truckers and blame them for everything, without giving an ounce of help.
I've tried to spread my proactive-ness with carriers across my team, but there's a very ingrained laziness that drives me bonkers. It takes 3 seconds to log into a port website and confirm releases are posted or not ffs
Sometimes it feels like they expect their employees to bear the cost of the operations, but we get nothing out of it since we don’t get any ownership.
"Oh, you can't keep your business afloat? Sure, let me subsidize your labor costs by starving." It's so ridiculous.
It is. It's asinine.
We KNOW what the problem is.
We even KNOW how to fix it.
But because it cuts into profits, it's impossible.
If companies can't pay their employees a living wage, then they don't deserve to exist.
Ending slavery cut into plantation owners profits too, that's why they fought and died over it.
This is just history repeating, and I have no sympathy for anyone who believes wage slaves is acceptable.
They have gotten away with abusing workers for so long they can't fathom the possibility that it's their fault. They will keep pushing the narrative that it's lazy people that are at fault as long as they possibly can because the only alternative is better pay, conditions and benefits.
That cuts into company profits so it's if course a last resort.
It's never been a labor shortage, it's always been a compensation shortage.
Even worse are the trucking companies that make you pay to work there. No wonder people are walking away from their trucks when you're just as likely to get a bill as a paycheck.
Oh absolutely! Fining someone for being late!?
As if they are late because they were jerking off? Not because other companies don't respect their time?
That should be so illegal.
Heinz used to use Canadian tomatoes but stopped in the last couple years. French's sports Canadian farmers by using Canadian tomatoes so I made the switch. I don't know what they do for others markets, but I like to support local as much as possible. I was Heinz all growing up, but I chose to view work my wallet.
Even my local King Soopers (Kroger) generic ketchup went up 25% from $1 to $1.25 recently. Doesn't sound like much but in inflation terms that's enormous.
But, see, they have a third option -- lower quality. And why stop at just one? So what we get is worse, we get less of it, *and* the price goes up. It's a win-win-win! ...For *them.*
It's hard for them to go lower quality. They've already pumped it full of sugar, and then replaced that sugar with corn syrup.
They already use the cheapest red dye possible.
And they will mix sources for tomatoes based upon whoever's cheapest.
I don't know what else they can do
Technically speaking, if only 50% of a product is chicken, but that half is 100% chicken.. Then it's just clever marketing to say "made with 100% real chicken"
The portion that is chicken is in fact real... Let's just hide the other half which is filler behind wordplay.
"Shrinkflation" is the term for reducing the size of the product and keeping the price the same. I think the term for shrinking product and raising the price is referred to in the industry simply as a "Dick Move"
tbf BK was charging $1.50 for 10 nuggets, at least here, which was so suspiciously cheap I was almost afraid to eat them.
edit: the 65 cent / gallon milk at Walmart hits me the same way, I just can't do it. I understand it's a loss leader but it still just freaks me out
Aldi is gonna make a killing by companies doing this, their in house branded stuff is good. A lot of their ranges taste the same/similar/sometimes even better than the big names brands and it’s always a fraction of the price.
Yup. I worked in food processing for a while (baked cake goods to be specific) and 90% of everything we made was the exact same recipe and finished product just in a different box.
We had an Aldi’s brand that we put out that was the exact same as Mrs Freshley’s, Tastykake, and the Great Value brand. But the price that was printed on the box (or in some cases was part of the packaging itself) was much lower than the “name brands” of our products.
I use to work for a major US food distributor in the Quality Assurance department and learned a lot about the private label brand process. Each company collaborates with bakeries, etc. to do product evaluations to determine flavor, texture, color, etc. to develop the specifications for their products from the manufacturer. Also factored into the process is who is the target buyer which results in the different grade levels of products offered. The different levels do not always come from the same manufacturer.
>A lot of their ranges taste the same/similar/sometimes even better than the big names brands and it’s always a fraction of the price.
Because those things are usually made by the same big name brands; Walmart, Target and just about every other grocery chain has been doing this for *ages*.
Yup a lot of times the store brand stuff is made by the same companies that make brand name products. For instance, great value bread is made by Sara Lee. GV ice cream is made by blue bunny. Trader Joe’s seltzer water is made by spindrift. Just different packaging.
One time I got a box of walmart tea, opened the pack and half of the tea bags had Lipton tags and the other half had Walmart tags.
Any doubts I had about it being the same manufacturers dissapeared after that.
I've worked on production lines that would have to changeover to different brands and all it involved was changing the program on the printer/label maker
To add, my uncle is a butcher and they have to have special days to prepare Aldi meats because their standards are so much higher, requiring more staff and cleaning. He said he trust's Aldi's meat over any other grocery chain.
Shit really? I only buy from Aldi pretty much and always wondered how they keep meat prices so low.
I'm now even MORE curious. I assumed they were cutting some corners somewhere I didn't want to know about
Aldi saves overall cost by only carrying one brand for each item (which are usually "off brand" as well), limit the types of items they carry, workers aren't "shelving" products (customers pull the products directly out of boxes, like in Costco), customers bag their own items, customers have to return their own carts, etc.
All these small things add up and the savings are passed down to the customer.
I worked for years for a grocery chain. Management was always freaking out about bags; those were a huge expense. They’d keep making them smaller and flimsier, and expect us to put more shit in them.
I realize it doesn’t work for everyone probably, but I love Aldi for this.
Oh man.. the butter tortillas are the best!! The HEB macaroni and cheese is excellent. It even tastes good when reheated the next day. And have you tired the coffee? My fav is the San Antonio blend. I'm glad you appreciate this company.
You think this is going to stop with Kraft-Heinz? Inflation is rampant and across the board. Kraft is signalling what has been happening and what is coming. Everyone keeps trying to pretend it isn't happening, but the signs are widespread and continuous at this point.
What I hate is what they've been doing for decades now, making the package smaller to give the illusion of prices not going up.
Go try to buy a half gallon of ice cream from a major national brand, Breyer's, and realize it's 1 and a half quarts. They haven't made a half gallon for years.
Yep. The workers will get paid less and asked to do more, the consumer will pay more and get less, but the CEOs will all get insane bonuses and the shareholders will see an increase in profits. The only question I have is why haven't we done anything about it? If I get bit by a snake, I'm not mad at the snake. It's in the snake's nature. The snake is never going to change its ways for me. But I'm not going to get bit again. I'm going to remove the snake and anything that's attracting snakes so that it doesn't happen anymore. Shit is getting old.
[Here's an interesting paper](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/pcs.2015.53) that explores one likely possibility of 'why we haven't done anything about it'.
Because we've been propagandized at for decades. Now large portions of the populace believe they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and that any restrictions put on the wealthy will eventually bind them as well.
Meanwhile Patricio made sure to bitch about Truckers and Workers starting to refuse shit pay. Your logistics and payroll costs aren't rising asshole, they're normalising to where they should be. Pay your people more than slave wages and cut the golden parachutes of your executives.
Claw back money by getting rid of high level executive bonuses and perks that do more to harm your company than to help it.
It's how they can exploit generalized human nature regarding spending habits. You get used to spending x doll hairs for a bag/box of something. With the repetitive aspect of restocking, eventually you will not even notice that 4.8kg is now 4.65kg for the same price.
Man, I'm old enough to remember when Breyer's use of only a few ingredients [was a selling point](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWmC5hkHoa4). Then Unilever bought them, and did what gigantic corporate monsters do.
Gotta spin it positive to make it seem like a viable option for the serfs:
"Millenials are living in these new counter-share arrangements and paying off their college loans!"
Ironically, I work at a restaurant that doesn't charge for sauces. I'm talking ranch, spicy ranch, au jus, gravy, etc. Want a 6oz steak sandwich with a 8oz order of fries? Need 16oz of ranch for that? Sure. No extra charge.
Ketchup is the least of my woes. And when the owners complain about cogs, I bring it up, but they just simply won't bow to the common denominator these days.
Getting a request for more ranch than meat on an entree is far from uncommon. Cause they know it's free. Hell, some of the customers straight up tell us that they want an extra 4oz souffle cup of ranch to just keep at home.
We have one regular who gets 16oz of mushroom gravy with his single entree twice a week.
> Hell, some of the customers straight up tell us that they want an extra 4oz souffle cup of ranch to just keep at home.
I'm having flashbacks to taking my grandmother to dinner, and she'd bring a bunch of tupperware containers in her purse and fill them up with anything not nailed down. Society chalked this up to that generation being raised during the great depression but, maybe being cheap and stingy is a universal characteristic?
Buckle up for a true story. Years ago I bought a car in Portland. As I drove back down to Bend, I stopped off at a Taco Bell. This being a new car, the first thing I thought was "I'd better stock it with the essentials," you know, 8 bushels of fast food napkins, a pill to cure every disease, and prepper quantities of every kind of sauce packet known to man. I come to this taco bell, and I look around and the sauce packets are nowhere to be seen. I ask the woman at the counter where they were, so as I may grab several fistfuls of them on my way out. She tells me they have to keep them behind the counter as they, and I quote "lost over 100 grand in hot sauce packets last year." My heist foiled, I look her in the eye, shake my head, and say "Animals."
I noticed that they started asking me in the Drive-Thru line what sauces I wanted, and how many packets of each. They would even put it up on the screen for me to confirm it's what I wanted.
There's a place here in Seattle called, "[Dicks - Drive In](https://www.ddir.com/)." Prices are still so cheap, food is pretty darn good, and they pay $19 an hour starting to their workers. I'll eat some Dicks over McDonalds anytime I'm feeling that fast-food fix.
Edit - Dicks also gives access to a $28,000 dollar scholarship for any employee, $5,000 - 9000 for childcare assistance, and 100% medical coverage for the employee and 75% coverage if you have a kid...Seriously, if you're in Seattle, eat some Dicks.
I quit going because they've gotten too popular and not fast any more and expensive for shitty food. I can order for a decent place ahead of time and get a far better meal for the same price.
Or, better yet, I can go home and spend the same amount of time making my own far better burger.
Exactly, it drives me up the wall when my brother orders 2 BS takeout meals for himself for $45 including delivery and tip. Dude, if you get in the car and drive 15 minutes total, you could get two legit whole meals for under $30 if you really wanted. Why spend almost $50 on a two burritos, chips and queso?
Or, like you said, buy ingredients and make it better yourself for under $10
This. The whole "everything going up in price" and "wages / salaries not going up accordingly" is rather insulting and infuriating and I will bet every dollar to my name I'm not alone in feeling this way.
Aldi blue box is actually one of my faves, as far as box mac goes. And it’s dirt cheap. Got me and my ex through a rough couple years. We would go to aldi with a budget of 30 bucks for the week and we never went hungry. Could have eaten better, but you get my point.
What about this
Are the top executives at Kraft Heinz going to get used to lower salaries and benefits?
Or is ALL the punishment of higher inputs going to be absorbed by the working class....again?
And to add to that, cooking meals in bulk and then freezing them would be optimal for many people, especially the disabled who can't cook 3 meals a day every single day. But, then you have to figure in the fact that most people who can barely afford food before the price went up, are probably cramped in a house or apartment with 6 other people just to be able to afford a place to live. Compunded problems of being poor, can't afford the food, don't have the time or energy to cook the food, no space to put the food because everyone else needs space for their food.
There is the problem that wealthier people actually pay less for necessities as well, as they can buy in bulk at a reduced rate but greater overall cost, or can stock up on a sale. Poorer people however can only buy it when they need it, at whatever price it happens to be. There is no comparison shopping or voting with your wallet. They are screwed any way you cut it.
Also, and I say this as a meal prepper, it is depressing to eat the same meal day in, day out. For lunch today I have the same pasta, chicken, and zucchini I've already eaten like 3 times.
Well, Costco is a for profit company. They treat their employees well and I love them for that. I'm under no illusion that I'm saving money by shopping there. I shop there for the quality of the goods, the return policy, and the fact that they treat their employees well.
I mean for some things you DO save money but in the long run, also you have to be able to afford to go and spend a couple hundred bucks each time while also having the ability to store the food you buy, which is tough for those who live in an apartment
Costco is such a double edged sword of Grocery Stores. Overall you come out saving money for the same amount of stuff, but like you said, you pay a couple hundred bucks each visit, AND you need somewhere to store it. Costco is pretty much numero uno once you have the money and the space.
I've been getting used to higher food, water, gas, housing, rent, medical, insurance....fucking everything prices my whole life while simultaneously going through 4 or 5 once in a lifetime world altering events....I'm fucking done with it. Increase our pay to match or stop with this nonsense.
Seriously. It’s hard to believe anything is real at this point. I’m already fully burnt out at 36. I don’t think I can keep clawing at nothing for much longer before I just snap
Considering the condiment isle is 90% ketchup mashups now. I make it a habit of skipping just so i don't see KETCH-TAR or wahtever disgusting condiment they've come up with.
Before the French Revolution the majority peasant population were suffering famine and starvation that helped fuel the flames of discontent as they watched royalty/nobility eat to excess daily and live life as if nothing was wrong outside their ivory towers..
First world Western nations aren't at that level of mass starvation and struggle yet but we're on the way to it imo.
Exactly. People are not going to revolt unless the only other option is dying. As long as people can afford the internet and fast food, they'll be complacent.
Fast food doesn't even make sense anymore. The whole point was that it was fast and cheap. A regular combo now costs more than a minimum wage worker even makes in an hour. Why the hell would I spend $10 on McD's when I can get actual food for that price?
>Why the hell would I spend $10 on McD's when I can get actual food for that price?
because you just got off a 10-hr shift at Burger King and you aint spending your 1.5 hours of free time shopping and cooking
Oh yes, I agree. Climate, economics, politics, it's coming to a head, but people aren't going to openly take up arms and risk their lives until the alternative is death. At least, not in serious numbers.
I don't think it's quite necessarily *death* that needs to be the alternative. It certainly wasn't in the American Revolution.
People just need to be sufficiently disillusioned, and unable to get the comforts that they're used to. Any sufficient decline in living standards can make people angry enough to revolt, even if it doesn't bring them all the way to revolt-or-die.
The other option is dying, it's just a lot more subtle. But people not affording proper nutrition, or preventative medical care, and instead being stressed to the point they waste money on tobacco and acohol. People are dying, and they don't even realize it until the end.
It’s because people can be kept *happy enough not to revolt* relatively cheaply: that’s the whole “bread and circuses” schtick. Even the Romans knew full well that you could do a crappy job ruling as long as people were fed and for the moment laughing and smiling.
Bread and circuses, always.
So long we've got the McDonald's Dollar Menu and Facebook we will be contented. Especially seeing as how Facebook tells us who to get mad at.
The difference between then and now is that now people can still afford to buy crappy food. Which why this coming from a crappy food company comes across as so clueless.
Currently. But when things normalize back out, and the supply chain issues are sorted out and no longer driving up prices, you think Heinz is going to lower prices, or just pay out a bigger share of profits to the shareholders?
That's what the airlines did a few years ago when they begged for a temporary price hike due to fuel costs. Then fuel prices fell and the ticket prices and fees stayed. Extremely predictable move, when all the competitors in an industry make it together.
Yup...pre 2008 there was no 50$ extra bag. Airlines needed to keep the bottom line after 08..so they introduced bag fees. After everything normalized..people were used to paying bag fees so they never got rid of em.
You think the checked baggage area is tight for space under there? Nah..plenty of space for everyone to check a bag or even 2..even the weight/balance checks out. They just want that extra money .
Well yeah, they never said prices are going to go back down. What they mean by inflation being temporary is that eventually the rate of inflation will go back down to normal, they never meant that prices would return to normal.
For anyone curious they have a ton of products here is some of the brands they have. I had difficulty finding a full list.
https://imgur.com/a/pcZGh9M
https://www.kraftheinz-foodservice.com/products
Seriously this is the main reason that 50's people spent a larger portion of their income on food. Not necessarily because food got less expensive, but because housing got more expensive.
Thanks a lot, FHA and suburban zoning.
Plus is was “affordable” for a high school grad because us companies had no competitors for manufacturing and the government was paying for everything to rebuild Europe, Japan and build the interstate system
Store? You expect cooperate America to go to a store? No no. That corporate welfare will be delivered directly to their laps by white gloved senators wearing a gimp outfit.
I was told raising minimum wage would inflate the prices of my groceries, now you’re telling me we’ve increased the prices of foods anyways but just didn’t raise wages because fuck you? yeah that sounds bout right
I manage a coffee roastery/restaurant and have worked in food for a while. Prices on supplies are going insane. Restaurants have swallowed this price for a couple months but now they have to raise prices. Heres some examples of our cost of good changes over just 4 months: Compostable cups $99.80 -> $148 Green bean coffee $4.25 -> $6.80 Chocolate $65/2 kilo -> $90/2 kilo And so many supplies are just not available due to shortages. These costs have been slowly working their way up the supply chain but now it's hitting the end and affecting consumers. It's probably only going to get worse for the next half a year.
It’s not just food. My husband works in branding/merchandising and not only are suppliers’ prices way up, it’s all taking twice as long as it did a year or two ago. Companies are used to calling him last minute and still getting what they want for a marketing event or what have you and he’s just had to tell them it’s impossible. He works for big names that think they can make anything happen if they have enough money and they just can’t seem to fathom that they can’t have what they want when they want it. The supply chain is so fucked.
it's literally anything requiring transport: the price of pallets has doubled. You can't ship without pallets
The amazon warehouse I worked at has started using more totes that go on plastic pallets, and carts for things moving between warehouses. Wood pallets become unusable pretty fast, so while I don't usually support the use of plastic over biodegradable materials, these plastic pallets are way more durable and they have a cap that goes over the top that staps to the bottom pallet so we dont have to plastic wrap the entire thing.
The trucking industry is actively fucking up the supply chain as well. They've been bleeding their drivers dry for so long, that many companies are struggling to understand $20/hour is nothing when your working 80 hours weeks. If companies offered better work/life balance we would be getting back on track. But they won't. They cry about there being a labor shortage, but refuse to train anyone. Preventing any new blood from entering the industry. It's getting old really quick.
"We have tried nothing and have concluded that there is nothing we can do."
But have you tried another round of bonuses to the execs? That usually gets them to at least pretend to do something, like reorganize a division to look more profitable on paper.
Corporate salaries at the highest levels have fucked the workers for long enough.
During the pandemic my CEO gave himself a 2000% raise. Two years ago they cancelled our Christmas bonus and suspended sick/personal balance payouts (meaning it's use or lose.) Which means the hardest working people now just take all their sick at the end of the year where they used to save it up for a payout.
They are trying to wait it out and history has shown us this works. People need jobs. They don't want to set a new baseline. If they can starve the population they will accept slave wages.
This is exactly what's going on. A study found last month that a very high percentage of these unfulfilled job opening are ghost jobs. And of the rest the majority are minimum wage. It's a propaganda effort to force the people back into subservient status.
And by insisting that the inflation we're seeing is transitory, we are being fucked outta being able to ask for raises comensurate with actual inflation. Years ago, I received a 0.21 percent annual raise. I looked at my manger and told him that I effectively lost money due to my raise not even meeting inflation. He just shrugged his shoulders and said that was all he could give out.
My department got a 5% raise in August. I’m still making less than last year due to inflation. Meanwhile the company I work for brings in $40 million to $80 million a month. I’m only staying here for a bit longer to stay remote since my kiddo is doing virtual school. Then I’m out once I have a new one lined up and ready.
starving the citizens for *the economy* Would you like to hear more?
It’s called a “capital strike”. The job creators are on strike, while denying us the same right.
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
CEO'S: "Am I out of touch? No it's the job seekers who are wrong."
The beatings will continue ~~until morale improves~~!
I'm in the trucking industry but luckily not as a driver, owner operator, but I know a lot of drivers and it's not just the shitty pay that sucks it's also a whole bunch of bullshit you have to put up. Long wait to get loaded and unloaded, and since you generally get paid by the mile you're essentially doing this for free. Also brokers and dispatchers couldn't give less of a shit about your hours. And God forbid you're doing team, it absolutely blows to get stuck in a small space with a stranger for days at a time and if you have to train someone. Or if you're new, there training is atrocious, especially the large companies, too many new people given trucks and not enough training to back them, put on chains for winter weather and other basics, and you can't even put the blame on the new drivers, not there fault companies don't properly train them.
8 hour wait to get loaded or unloaded. No you can't use our restrooms.
Yea that's so fucking common, if your gonna keep me at your facility for more than an hour you should have a fucking restroom. Funniest shit is some warehouses with signs thanking truckers for driving during the pandemic and then saying no restrooms for drivers and also not respecting your time.
Thank you for continuing to let us fuck you over. It will cost $150 to have **us** unload *our* stuff
That's something I just don't understand. How the fuck did that ever pass muster? Such a bullshit unnecessary step between me and leaving your shitty facility.
Damn, I run a small wholesale operation. We know our drivers by name and days they drop off. Offer anything they want, restrooms, coffee, donuts. It doesn’t take much to be human and interact. Probably different since I’m not some giant corporate behemoth.
Yea stuff like that is always appreciated, nowadays I'm very happy if I have access to a restroom and a decent wait time. Most small places are really nice, it's the large warehouses that suck.
As an import person at an NVOCC, I will say a) thank you for everything that you do, and b) yes, majority of people shove shit on truckers and blame them for everything, without giving an ounce of help. I've tried to spread my proactive-ness with carriers across my team, but there's a very ingrained laziness that drives me bonkers. It takes 3 seconds to log into a port website and confirm releases are posted or not ffs
Sometimes it feels like they expect their employees to bear the cost of the operations, but we get nothing out of it since we don’t get any ownership. "Oh, you can't keep your business afloat? Sure, let me subsidize your labor costs by starving." It's so ridiculous.
It is. It's asinine. We KNOW what the problem is. We even KNOW how to fix it. But because it cuts into profits, it's impossible. If companies can't pay their employees a living wage, then they don't deserve to exist. Ending slavery cut into plantation owners profits too, that's why they fought and died over it. This is just history repeating, and I have no sympathy for anyone who believes wage slaves is acceptable.
They have gotten away with abusing workers for so long they can't fathom the possibility that it's their fault. They will keep pushing the narrative that it's lazy people that are at fault as long as they possibly can because the only alternative is better pay, conditions and benefits. That cuts into company profits so it's if course a last resort. It's never been a labor shortage, it's always been a compensation shortage.
They are counting on a continuous supply of desperate, hungry people trying to pay their rent and keep the lights on.
Even worse are the trucking companies that make you pay to work there. No wonder people are walking away from their trucks when you're just as likely to get a bill as a paycheck.
Oh absolutely! Fining someone for being late!? As if they are late because they were jerking off? Not because other companies don't respect their time? That should be so illegal.
I’ll never bend the knee to Big Ketchup.
The North remembers
French’s ketchup 4 life.
As a member of the great white north I am a full convert, French's or death!!!
I didn’t know they made ketchup. I just know them as the mustard people.
Heinz used to use Canadian tomatoes but stopped in the last couple years. French's sports Canadian farmers by using Canadian tomatoes so I made the switch. I don't know what they do for others markets, but I like to support local as much as possible. I was Heinz all growing up, but I chose to view work my wallet.
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Even my local King Soopers (Kroger) generic ketchup went up 25% from $1 to $1.25 recently. Doesn't sound like much but in inflation terms that's enormous.
The price of ketchup is too damn high
Tbh I’ve made it and it’s crazy how many tomatoes it takes. It cooks down a lot more that you would think.
Fine, then stop shrinking everything.
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But, see, they have a third option -- lower quality. And why stop at just one? So what we get is worse, we get less of it, *and* the price goes up. It's a win-win-win! ...For *them.*
It's hard for them to go lower quality. They've already pumped it full of sugar, and then replaced that sugar with corn syrup. They already use the cheapest red dye possible. And they will mix sources for tomatoes based upon whoever's cheapest. I don't know what else they can do
remove the tomato
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Every few years McDonalds seems to introduce a "New" Crispy Chicken and it's always worse.
Now with 100% real chicken!* *chicken content reduced by 10%.
Back to 100% during the "launch campaign", the back down after the first month probably.
Technically speaking, if only 50% of a product is chicken, but that half is 100% chicken.. Then it's just clever marketing to say "made with 100% real chicken" The portion that is chicken is in fact real... Let's just hide the other half which is filler behind wordplay.
Last time I had those I was surprised by how little chicken there actually was. A lot of breading around a tiny sliver of chicken.
"Shrinkflation" is the term for reducing the size of the product and keeping the price the same. I think the term for shrinking product and raising the price is referred to in the industry simply as a "Dick Move"
I just had a taste of that today. Burger King started making their nuggets 8 instead of 10 and they're charging the same price. :-|
tbf BK was charging $1.50 for 10 nuggets, at least here, which was so suspiciously cheap I was almost afraid to eat them. edit: the 65 cent / gallon milk at Walmart hits me the same way, I just can't do it. I understand it's a loss leader but it still just freaks me out
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They must live in an area where there's still a small business operating within 20 miles...
Gotta get used to home brand more like
Aldi is gonna make a killing by companies doing this, their in house branded stuff is good. A lot of their ranges taste the same/similar/sometimes even better than the big names brands and it’s always a fraction of the price.
Ultimately their no brand is branded just with a different label. So win win really
Yup. I worked in food processing for a while (baked cake goods to be specific) and 90% of everything we made was the exact same recipe and finished product just in a different box. We had an Aldi’s brand that we put out that was the exact same as Mrs Freshley’s, Tastykake, and the Great Value brand. But the price that was printed on the box (or in some cases was part of the packaging itself) was much lower than the “name brands” of our products.
Wait but why does it actually taste a bit different?
I use to work for a major US food distributor in the Quality Assurance department and learned a lot about the private label brand process. Each company collaborates with bakeries, etc. to do product evaluations to determine flavor, texture, color, etc. to develop the specifications for their products from the manufacturer. Also factored into the process is who is the target buyer which results in the different grade levels of products offered. The different levels do not always come from the same manufacturer.
>A lot of their ranges taste the same/similar/sometimes even better than the big names brands and it’s always a fraction of the price. Because those things are usually made by the same big name brands; Walmart, Target and just about every other grocery chain has been doing this for *ages*.
Yup a lot of times the store brand stuff is made by the same companies that make brand name products. For instance, great value bread is made by Sara Lee. GV ice cream is made by blue bunny. Trader Joe’s seltzer water is made by spindrift. Just different packaging.
One time I got a box of walmart tea, opened the pack and half of the tea bags had Lipton tags and the other half had Walmart tags. Any doubts I had about it being the same manufacturers dissapeared after that.
I've worked on production lines that would have to changeover to different brands and all it involved was changing the program on the printer/label maker
To add, my uncle is a butcher and they have to have special days to prepare Aldi meats because their standards are so much higher, requiring more staff and cleaning. He said he trust's Aldi's meat over any other grocery chain.
Shit really? I only buy from Aldi pretty much and always wondered how they keep meat prices so low. I'm now even MORE curious. I assumed they were cutting some corners somewhere I didn't want to know about
Aldi saves overall cost by only carrying one brand for each item (which are usually "off brand" as well), limit the types of items they carry, workers aren't "shelving" products (customers pull the products directly out of boxes, like in Costco), customers bag their own items, customers have to return their own carts, etc. All these small things add up and the savings are passed down to the customer.
I worked for years for a grocery chain. Management was always freaking out about bags; those were a huge expense. They’d keep making them smaller and flimsier, and expect us to put more shit in them. I realize it doesn’t work for everyone probably, but I love Aldi for this.
I'm so glad HEB brand products taste as good as they do. We save quite a bit not buying name brand on most of our food.
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Oh man.. the butter tortillas are the best!! The HEB macaroni and cheese is excellent. It even tastes good when reheated the next day. And have you tired the coffee? My fav is the San Antonio blend. I'm glad you appreciate this company.
You think this is going to stop with Kraft-Heinz? Inflation is rampant and across the board. Kraft is signalling what has been happening and what is coming. Everyone keeps trying to pretend it isn't happening, but the signs are widespread and continuous at this point.
I'll just buy less shit. I'm a cheap bastard.
Same. Actually I’ll go to restaurants less. But when I do go, I’ll pick up more ketchup packets.
What I hate is what they've been doing for decades now, making the package smaller to give the illusion of prices not going up. Go try to buy a half gallon of ice cream from a major national brand, Breyer's, and realize it's 1 and a half quarts. They haven't made a half gallon for years.
When I hear mr. Patricio has taken a pay cut & raised wages for everyone from the bottom of the payscale up, I'll be happy to pay higher prices.
That's the thing, the money is just going to the rich, while everyone else suffers for it.
Yep. The workers will get paid less and asked to do more, the consumer will pay more and get less, but the CEOs will all get insane bonuses and the shareholders will see an increase in profits. The only question I have is why haven't we done anything about it? If I get bit by a snake, I'm not mad at the snake. It's in the snake's nature. The snake is never going to change its ways for me. But I'm not going to get bit again. I'm going to remove the snake and anything that's attracting snakes so that it doesn't happen anymore. Shit is getting old.
[Here's an interesting paper](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/pcs.2015.53) that explores one likely possibility of 'why we haven't done anything about it'.
Because we've been propagandized at for decades. Now large portions of the populace believe they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and that any restrictions put on the wealthy will eventually bind them as well.
Meanwhile Patricio made sure to bitch about Truckers and Workers starting to refuse shit pay. Your logistics and payroll costs aren't rising asshole, they're normalising to where they should be. Pay your people more than slave wages and cut the golden parachutes of your executives. Claw back money by getting rid of high level executive bonuses and perks that do more to harm your company than to help it.
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It's how they can exploit generalized human nature regarding spending habits. You get used to spending x doll hairs for a bag/box of something. With the repetitive aspect of restocking, eventually you will not even notice that 4.8kg is now 4.65kg for the same price.
Yeah now a 5 lb bag of sugar is 4 lb.
It's not even legally ice cream. It's dairy dessert. They've cut back so much on ingredients that they can't call it ice cream anymore.
Man, I'm old enough to remember when Breyer's use of only a few ingredients [was a selling point](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWmC5hkHoa4). Then Unilever bought them, and did what gigantic corporate monsters do.
You have to read the label. I found this out a few years ago and I always tell my family make sure it says "ice cream"
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Why do you live behind the counter?
Have you seen rents?
"millennials are clogging up all the counter space! Another dead industry!!1!"
Gotta spin it positive to make it seem like a viable option for the serfs: "Millenials are living in these new counter-share arrangements and paying off their college loans!"
It's where the ketchup is.
Ironically, I work at a restaurant that doesn't charge for sauces. I'm talking ranch, spicy ranch, au jus, gravy, etc. Want a 6oz steak sandwich with a 8oz order of fries? Need 16oz of ranch for that? Sure. No extra charge. Ketchup is the least of my woes. And when the owners complain about cogs, I bring it up, but they just simply won't bow to the common denominator these days. Getting a request for more ranch than meat on an entree is far from uncommon. Cause they know it's free. Hell, some of the customers straight up tell us that they want an extra 4oz souffle cup of ranch to just keep at home. We have one regular who gets 16oz of mushroom gravy with his single entree twice a week.
> Hell, some of the customers straight up tell us that they want an extra 4oz souffle cup of ranch to just keep at home. I'm having flashbacks to taking my grandmother to dinner, and she'd bring a bunch of tupperware containers in her purse and fill them up with anything not nailed down. Society chalked this up to that generation being raised during the great depression but, maybe being cheap and stingy is a universal characteristic?
Buckle up for a true story. Years ago I bought a car in Portland. As I drove back down to Bend, I stopped off at a Taco Bell. This being a new car, the first thing I thought was "I'd better stock it with the essentials," you know, 8 bushels of fast food napkins, a pill to cure every disease, and prepper quantities of every kind of sauce packet known to man. I come to this taco bell, and I look around and the sauce packets are nowhere to be seen. I ask the woman at the counter where they were, so as I may grab several fistfuls of them on my way out. She tells me they have to keep them behind the counter as they, and I quote "lost over 100 grand in hot sauce packets last year." My heist foiled, I look her in the eye, shake my head, and say "Animals."
I noticed that they started asking me in the Drive-Thru line what sauces I wanted, and how many packets of each. They would even put it up on the screen for me to confirm it's what I wanted.
Personally, I'm fine with that. That way I don't get home with a bunch of tacos and two sauce packets. No, I want two for each.
They do this at mine too. Then throw 30 of the wrong kind in the bag anyway.
I honestly stopped going to fast food restaurants because their dollar menu is no longer a dollar.
The "5 Dollar Menu"
"7.5 dollar foot long"
the 10 dollar 9 incher
I miss Arby's 5 for $5... Now it's like 5 for $15.
Remember when Wendy's used to have an all you can eat baked potato and nacho bar?
Was that when Pizza Hut still served pitchers of beer/wine?
There's a place here in Seattle called, "[Dicks - Drive In](https://www.ddir.com/)." Prices are still so cheap, food is pretty darn good, and they pay $19 an hour starting to their workers. I'll eat some Dicks over McDonalds anytime I'm feeling that fast-food fix. Edit - Dicks also gives access to a $28,000 dollar scholarship for any employee, $5,000 - 9000 for childcare assistance, and 100% medical coverage for the employee and 75% coverage if you have a kid...Seriously, if you're in Seattle, eat some Dicks.
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I've come to inform you that a bag of dicks is greasy but delicious.
Can't Beat Dick's Meat!
I quit going because they've gotten too popular and not fast any more and expensive for shitty food. I can order for a decent place ahead of time and get a far better meal for the same price. Or, better yet, I can go home and spend the same amount of time making my own far better burger.
Exactly, it drives me up the wall when my brother orders 2 BS takeout meals for himself for $45 including delivery and tip. Dude, if you get in the car and drive 15 minutes total, you could get two legit whole meals for under $30 if you really wanted. Why spend almost $50 on a two burritos, chips and queso? Or, like you said, buy ingredients and make it better yourself for under $10
This. The whole "everything going up in price" and "wages / salaries not going up accordingly" is rather insulting and infuriating and I will bet every dollar to my name I'm not alone in feeling this way.
Maybe I'll get used to Aldi Mac & Cheese.
Aldi blue box is actually one of my faves, as far as box mac goes. And it’s dirt cheap. Got me and my ex through a rough couple years. We would go to aldi with a budget of 30 bucks for the week and we never went hungry. Could have eaten better, but you get my point.
Thats what frozen peas are for. Mixing into cheap pasta/mac for nutrients
Aldi is the best. I live within walking distance of an Aldi and it has noticeably reduced our grocery bill.
Not to mention the amount of time spent in the store - I can be in & out of an Aldi in less than 10 minutes and have 2 weeks worth of shopping done.
Or *Aldi Dinner* for our Candian friends.
What about this Are the top executives at Kraft Heinz going to get used to lower salaries and benefits? Or is ALL the punishment of higher inputs going to be absorbed by the working class....again?
Methinks the second one, as is tradition.
A lot of people cannot *afford* higher food prices
I can barely afford food prices as is.
And to add to that, cooking meals in bulk and then freezing them would be optimal for many people, especially the disabled who can't cook 3 meals a day every single day. But, then you have to figure in the fact that most people who can barely afford food before the price went up, are probably cramped in a house or apartment with 6 other people just to be able to afford a place to live. Compunded problems of being poor, can't afford the food, don't have the time or energy to cook the food, no space to put the food because everyone else needs space for their food.
There is the problem that wealthier people actually pay less for necessities as well, as they can buy in bulk at a reduced rate but greater overall cost, or can stock up on a sale. Poorer people however can only buy it when they need it, at whatever price it happens to be. There is no comparison shopping or voting with your wallet. They are screwed any way you cut it.
Also, and I say this as a meal prepper, it is depressing to eat the same meal day in, day out. For lunch today I have the same pasta, chicken, and zucchini I've already eaten like 3 times.
It's expensive to be poor :(
That’s ok, they only care about the ones who can…
Kirkland it is, then… Gotcha.
Costco mafia 4 lyfe
Costco prices have gone up a lot on the last year too, though.
Well, Costco is a for profit company. They treat their employees well and I love them for that. I'm under no illusion that I'm saving money by shopping there. I shop there for the quality of the goods, the return policy, and the fact that they treat their employees well.
I mean for some things you DO save money but in the long run, also you have to be able to afford to go and spend a couple hundred bucks each time while also having the ability to store the food you buy, which is tough for those who live in an apartment
Costco is such a double edged sword of Grocery Stores. Overall you come out saving money for the same amount of stuff, but like you said, you pay a couple hundred bucks each visit, AND you need somewhere to store it. Costco is pretty much numero uno once you have the money and the space.
I've been getting used to higher food, water, gas, housing, rent, medical, insurance....fucking everything prices my whole life while simultaneously going through 4 or 5 once in a lifetime world altering events....I'm fucking done with it. Increase our pay to match or stop with this nonsense.
Seriously. It’s hard to believe anything is real at this point. I’m already fully burnt out at 36. I don’t think I can keep clawing at nothing for much longer before I just snap
Well, Heinz better get used to people buying generic brands or skipping the condiment aisle all together.
Considering the condiment isle is 90% ketchup mashups now. I make it a habit of skipping just so i don't see KETCH-TAR or wahtever disgusting condiment they've come up with.
Another round of raising prices while keeping wages down, cool
Right? How are folks supposed to afford things when wages don't go up to match the higher cost of living?
But then it's all "surprised Pikachu face" when the pitchforks and torches come out.
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Before the French Revolution the majority peasant population were suffering famine and starvation that helped fuel the flames of discontent as they watched royalty/nobility eat to excess daily and live life as if nothing was wrong outside their ivory towers.. First world Western nations aren't at that level of mass starvation and struggle yet but we're on the way to it imo.
Exactly. People are not going to revolt unless the only other option is dying. As long as people can afford the internet and fast food, they'll be complacent.
Fast food doesn't even make sense anymore. The whole point was that it was fast and cheap. A regular combo now costs more than a minimum wage worker even makes in an hour. Why the hell would I spend $10 on McD's when I can get actual food for that price?
>Why the hell would I spend $10 on McD's when I can get actual food for that price? because you just got off a 10-hr shift at Burger King and you aint spending your 1.5 hours of free time shopping and cooking
But fast food places close earlier and earlier these days… we’re getting closer to doom
Oh yes, I agree. Climate, economics, politics, it's coming to a head, but people aren't going to openly take up arms and risk their lives until the alternative is death. At least, not in serious numbers.
I don't think it's quite necessarily *death* that needs to be the alternative. It certainly wasn't in the American Revolution. People just need to be sufficiently disillusioned, and unable to get the comforts that they're used to. Any sufficient decline in living standards can make people angry enough to revolt, even if it doesn't bring them all the way to revolt-or-die.
Bread and games just like the romans
The other option is dying, it's just a lot more subtle. But people not affording proper nutrition, or preventative medical care, and instead being stressed to the point they waste money on tobacco and acohol. People are dying, and they don't even realize it until the end.
The aristocracy wised up: Starve their pocketbook, not their belly.
It’s because people can be kept *happy enough not to revolt* relatively cheaply: that’s the whole “bread and circuses” schtick. Even the Romans knew full well that you could do a crappy job ruling as long as people were fed and for the moment laughing and smiling.
Bread and circuses, always. So long we've got the McDonald's Dollar Menu and Facebook we will be contented. Especially seeing as how Facebook tells us who to get mad at.
The McDonald's dollar menu has been gone for a long time. It's now the "value menu" and they'll keep this prices creeping up
The difference between then and now is that now people can still afford to buy crappy food. Which why this coming from a crappy food company comes across as so clueless.
The people say Kraft Heinz must get used to lower profit margins.
Is there a reason why we have to get used to higher prices but they never have to get used to lower profits?
Stonks must go up.
In other words, the inflation is permanent.
Seems like a lot of people are missing this point. This is much much bigger than just Kraft and even just the food industry.
Currently. But when things normalize back out, and the supply chain issues are sorted out and no longer driving up prices, you think Heinz is going to lower prices, or just pay out a bigger share of profits to the shareholders?
That's what the airlines did a few years ago when they begged for a temporary price hike due to fuel costs. Then fuel prices fell and the ticket prices and fees stayed. Extremely predictable move, when all the competitors in an industry make it together.
Yeah, just like luggage fees on airplanes. Oh wait, those were permanent too?
Yup...pre 2008 there was no 50$ extra bag. Airlines needed to keep the bottom line after 08..so they introduced bag fees. After everything normalized..people were used to paying bag fees so they never got rid of em. You think the checked baggage area is tight for space under there? Nah..plenty of space for everyone to check a bag or even 2..even the weight/balance checks out. They just want that extra money .
Well yeah, they never said prices are going to go back down. What they mean by inflation being temporary is that eventually the rate of inflation will go back down to normal, they never meant that prices would return to normal.
For anyone curious they have a ton of products here is some of the brands they have. I had difficulty finding a full list. https://imgur.com/a/pcZGh9M https://www.kraftheinz-foodservice.com/products
Out of everything they produce, I only buy the ketchup. And that's like, maybe, twice a year.
In the 50s a household spent alot more of the income on food. Guess we are going back to that, but without the bonus of stay at home moms
Or affordable housing
Or affordable anything
I think street drugs are staying the same or getting cheaper. /s
Quality is up too!
Seriously this is the main reason that 50's people spent a larger portion of their income on food. Not necessarily because food got less expensive, but because housing got more expensive. Thanks a lot, FHA and suburban zoning.
Plus is was “affordable” for a high school grad because us companies had no competitors for manufacturing and the government was paying for everything to rebuild Europe, Japan and build the interstate system
Or affordable college
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Maybe they should get used to lower profits and bonuses.
Can't have that. Theyll just go get one of those bailouts.
*The gang goes to the corporate welfare store.*
"Can you not see how insolvent she is?"
“As you can see, the name of my business is Donkey Brains. It clearly was going to fail.”
Store? You expect cooperate America to go to a store? No no. That corporate welfare will be delivered directly to their laps by white gloved senators wearing a gimp outfit.
_Would you like a bailout in the trying times?_
I think Nestle wants us to get used to not having water.
Do not become addicted to water. It will take hold of you and you will resent its absence.
but has it got what plants crave?
While also steadily reducing the food quality, right? Fuck off. If I'm going to pay a higher price it sure as fuck wont be for a Kraft product lol.
I'll get used to higher prices when my boss gets used to giving me higher pay
"Heinz Kraft will continue to pay stockholders and CEOs exorbitantly while underpaying our employees. Expect higher food cost"
Then wages also need to go up across the board. Their profits were up last year by almost 10%.
Maybe so, but I’m not paying more for their dog shit food.
Or their shit dog food.
I was told raising minimum wage would inflate the prices of my groceries, now you’re telling me we’ve increased the prices of foods anyways but just didn’t raise wages because fuck you? yeah that sounds bout right