Soda is such a fucking profitable scam because it’s mostly water and that resource is mostly free. The syrup and carbonation should be pennies compared to what it actually sells for.
Water is far from “mostly free”, especially at the amounts used by soda makers
Don’t know the situation in america so what you say may be true, but on some countries (developing ones where the power of the state is diminished) water is not free for everybody else, but multinational corporations get almost unlimited use concessions for their bottlers for a laughably low fee if any, drying out the area and sometimes literally leaving towns or regions with no public water left for other uses, forcing the people to have to pay for other sources. I don’t live in a place in that situation yet, but some other regions in my country are going exactly through that. In some cases, those beverages are for the american market.
It probably not that cheap anywhere in the U.S., but on the other hand, they probably get enough tax breaks to make up for it.
Here in Germany they can extract millions of liters for a symbolic euro, that is basically free and also far from a third world country. Coke has enough power to get through with this.
They “proved” the trick works by a couple years back, releasing some different flavors in that shape can. Too many of us paid the premium to get the different flavor, even knowing it’s just manufactured scarcity. I still miss the blueberry-acai Diet Coke. Maybe they came away with “weirdly shaped cans sell at bigger profit”
We’ve had these types of cans for years and years and years where I’m from, but they were expensive before the switch too.
Several years ago mountain dew had the following prices
20 oz - $2
1 liter - $2
2 liter - $2
1.5 liter - $1
It wasn’t a sale, they had these prices on several stores for over a year.
A 12oz can was around $0.28 (when you buy a case). Today you’re lucky if you can pay $0.45.
I’ve had the best luck with Dollar General for affordable drinks. You have to wait for a decent sale and stock up though, and use coupons when available.
For example: recently for Dr Pepper they had two 12-packs for $14, but you could buy three for $15 and there was a coupon for $2 off when buying three, making it $13 for three 12-packs. So you would pay a dollar less for 36 cans than you would for 24. Comes out to about $0.36 per can.
Yeah, they’re happy to offer lower prices for people who are willing to climb barriers. It’s just a way of doing tiered pricing.
You know how many smokers have/had their hard line on what price would make them quit smoking? For me (a 52yo woman) that was when pop breached $5.99 a 24 pack case. I would buy it again occasionally if sale prices dipped into that range, but having crossed that line it broke my habit. The thought of $7 for a 12 pack is just painful.
Yeah, that’s fair. I haven’t stopped drinking it, but I’m reducing how much I drink as prices increase.
20oz are more expensive per volume because they sell faster. There’s less of a demand for larger sizes typically go flat too fast for people unless they’re having a party or something, and even in that case they don’t have the convenience of being able to drink from the bottle.
Do you leave your soda uncapped or something? I buy almost exclusively 2 liter bottles and they very rarely go flat on me. I’ll drink one over the course of about 4 days.
No. I never had any issues with larger soda bottles. I would usually buy the 1 or 1.5 liter bottles because they were usually the best deal.
I did some sales work for one of the local soda distributors, and it was crazy how much better the 20oz bottles did in comparison to everything else.
It was the same with energy drinks. Most people would buy single cans for $3 when they could get a 4 pack for $10 or a 12 pack for $20.
We would usually just open the 12 packs at our accounts because the singles simply sold better.
The 1.5 liter for 2 bucks got me through college lmao
When I was in college a gas station a block from me would do incredible deals on soda 12 packs abouth once a month. Like buy one get two free. We’d stock a full month’s worth every time and basically have a soda mountain for people to rummage through
These units hurt me. For others with the same pain 20 oz is a bit over 1/2 a liter
Honestly kinda based
Soda costs pennies, the plastic container is the bulk of the cost, and not much changes in plastic quantity between container sizes
And the marketing, the ceo’s bonus, logistics…
Weird, looks the CEO’s bonus is worth 1000 marketing and logistics guys.
Also, it turns out worker compensation and materials were already included in the cost of production.
Prices are, and should be, based on value not cost.
This toxic garbage has negative value. They should be paying me to drink this poison.
You say, based on jack fucking shit
Y’all, remember this is sugar water and even at $1.06 there’s a significant profit margin.
Yeah, it certainly doesn’t seem like their production costs would increase much from inflation…
They don’t increase from inflation. The price increase is inflation and I think it’s an important distinction to make.
Is not even sugar water, it’s corn tea with artificial flavors and colors.
Depends on the country. Corn syrup in everything is a distinctly American phenomenon
If you look at the picture you might be able to tell where it was taken. There are some pretty good hints.
As long as I stay mad at “those damn libs” then companies can raise prices with impunity. If nobody boycotts these innocent companies then stock prices will be able to surge.
Honestly though, I wish people understood that by blaming only inflation they’re effectively giving companies a blank check to keep raising prices. Sigh.
Stupid shape for a can too, tips over In a vehicles cup holder
Also more surface area, so it will warm up sooner (I think?)
Uses more aluminum to store the same amount of liquid too.
You sure about that?
Cylinders of the same volume will have the same area, so it should be the same amount of aluminum?
Maybe less, even, since the lid and bottom are thicker than the sides and on the taller can there’s less of that thick top/bottom
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The easiest way to imagine how cylinders have different surface area for a given volume, is imagine how closely a shape matches a sphere, it should have a lower surface area.
Imagine a soda can with the width of one water molecule. The cross section of that can would be on the order of four aluminum atoms for that hair thin can. Then imagine a can that’s nearly a cube or a sphere and how all the liquid can be hiding behind other liquid atoms: hence fewer can atoms per liquid volume.
Blood vessels have high surface area. A pint of blood has low.
That can’t be true.
Consider a cylinder cut in half, giving a circular cross section. Cover each new circular gap with new aluminum.
Now you’ve enclosed the same volume in cylinders, with a different surface area.
You also created 2 cylinders where once there was one, which is not what was being discussed. You even mention that you added material:
Cover each new circular gap with new aluminum
I could have said “2 cylinders of the same volume” but I felt context made that clear
Yes I did say that I added material. That’s the point: you cannot do this transformation without adding material.
But you’re saying this is only with two cylinders?
Ignore things like the bevel, wall thickness, etc. Just calculating for a basic right cylinder, you can see how the surface area changes for different heights with a constant volume. I’ve outlined the standard dimensions of a can(inches).
https://youtu.be/gL3HxBQyeg0I always thought that narrower pressure vessels could contain higher pressure, because the curvature is more severe, meaning that for a vessel that needs to retain a similar level of pressure, you could just use less material in the walls of the vessel. Is this not the case with these new cans, and they have the same wall thickness, or is the tradeoff just one that still works out to be in favor of more total aluminum usage?
Force inside a cylinder vessel is just pressure times surface area. If you have the same pressure(soda carbonation) with more surface area, then you are putting less force on the walls. I don’t have any specialty in the materials engineering for canning, but i suppose less force on the walls means you could use thinner materials. However, soda can walls are already pretty thin to start with and from what I can find online, the tops are usually 2.5-3 times thicker. So, I could see it potentially cutting some cost from the tops by making them thinner but i doubt they are manufacturing different tops. It’s probably just marketing.
I had a feeling it’d math out something like that if I opened my fat mouth, lol
I do wonder if thickness of the walls or lid/bottom does have an effect, though, as there must be some reason they make these weird ass cans
there must be some reason
Just a marketing trick IIRC, since energy drinks got popular and beer cans got unpopular among gen z.
True, look at the seltzer market for instance.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not using much more. And if the prices are correct in OP, the markup on the new can is way higher than any extra cost they are incurring from additional raw materials. They probably had some marketing study show that a taller looking can makes consumer’s less angry about a price increase or some other crazy nonsense.
The lid uses more aluminum than the rest of the can, making that smaller will have a bigger impact than the height of the can.
and both of those cans use the same size lid
pretty sure it just lets them fit more cans into the same box for shipping, same logic as how you can pack more sand into a box than you can pebbles
a sphere (think bubbles) minimizes area for a given volume
same size top/bottom for both; only difference is that the standard has a wider body bevel, and the sleek can goes nearly straight down. same lid on both cans, as well. not sure what it does for the scaled material cost, but since the lid is by far the most expensive part, it’s probably negligible, compared to the ability to inflate the price on a taller can.
I can’t fully explain the trend, but ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverages are a big hit for the industry, and even moreso when presented in the truly/high noon shape. maybe it’s a generational thing? I don’t get it, but I’m also not the target demographic.
bonus fact: the conversion costs of filling sleek cans is pretty steep for most independent brewers, so craft beer will take a couple years to adapt, if ever.
I thought the cand were extruded from discs… Maybe they use a larger disc, but I think the taller cans have thinner walls.
Source: https://youtu.be/V4TVDSWuR5E
Shady backdoor deal with bounty I bet
Consuming that utterly unhealthy drink is the real trickflation.
if you’re buying coke in america, you should get the 12 packs at grocery stores instead. it’s anywhere between $5.99 to $8.99, which is less than a dollar per can
That’s fucking crazy. I stopped buying soda pre-covid, but I regularly got 4 12packs for $2.99 each up until at least 2019.
most people are getting cans like that in a pinch tho, if you want a lot of cola, regular 2 liter plastic bottles (or even better, 6-packs of 1.5/2l) are a much better deal
Water.
Wow good point! Water IS cheaper than coke! And healthier too I’m sure! It’s a damn shame we’re talking about coke and not water, or else I’m sure someone would give you a prize for your thoughtful and original comment.
you’d be surprised how often bottled coke is cheaper than bottled water
Agua
水
Or get the 2L bottles, which are usually around the same price as the 500 mL bottles (for some reason).
And if you think you can dodge microplastics by opting for aluminum instead of bottles, I have some bad news for you.
:(
Because if you drink 500ml of a 2L bottle and put the cap back on, the rest goes flat.
Are you screwing the cap on all the way?
Yes, it probably won’t be completely flat after half a liter but the fizzyness will be noticeably weaker and will only get worse the more you drink, especially if you don’t get to it soon. Two liters are ok if you’re sharing them with multiple people who will finish it right away or the next day but they suck for one person unless you drink a ridiculous amount of soda.
I think you’re just shaking it too much. If you are gentle to avoid losing the carbonation and put the cap on tight, it can last for days.
IME, not only no, but they will yell at the housemate who does for putting it on too tight.
It used to drive me mental when people would complain about how tight I’d screw the cap on. What do you even think the point of that thing is?!
Not on sale? Where I am, I only see the $7 price when it’s on sale and you have to buy 3. So it’s 2 for $10 and get one free. Without that the normal price is about $10. The best sales that come around during big holidays only are buy 2 get 2 free, which brings it down to $5.
This must be that soft landing 3% inflation I’ve been hearing all about.
If it’s tall and slim, it worth more. This is true for both cans and people.
For some reason, those taller cans even feel like less. Maybe because they are so thin. We have them for several years here in Germany.
At least it’s still original taste …
…do people think the tall can is bigger? If anything, I’ve always assumed that they were smaller 🤷♂️
They do have a larger surface area for the same volume…
(I don’t know why this image is transparent)
In my highschool psych class we actually went to an elementary school and did this experiment with the kiddos. It was a while ago but if I recall correctly, 9/10 times they thought tall = bigger. I bet some people never grow out of that mindset or at least at first glance our less smart brain goes “tall is big!”
I guarantee these big corporations have psych majors working in their marketing teams and it’s 100% intentional.
Oh for sure, it’s definitely a whole wing of the organization. People are the ones who spend money, so if you want more money, study and exploit the people who spend it.
This exact image is what I had in mind when I saw this post. Lol
Oh hey we watched that video in my psych class. Funny phenomenon. Kids are dumb
Credit: Alex Culang & Raynato Castro
Oh no! A potential monotonous job that lets me live a life of luxury 10,000x better than any of those animals if I wanted! Better equate it to a death trap… Not the reality of simply existing in the first place lol.
Lick more of that boot. Go on, get it shining, slave boy.
Said the dumb Gabu man to every man, woman, and child in a society born since 12,000 years ago.
What an absolutely, straight up, dumbest possible take anyone in existence could have. Are you possibly a literal baby talking to me from the afterlife after you refused to conform to society at all? After being born with such gifted intelligence that you refused to partake in existence?
If so, props lol.
Otherwise, have fun in your shack in the Outback or Canadian Wilderness with somehow so much time on your hands you’re still shit posting on Lemmy lol.
Stop using so many drugs, your brain clearly got completely cooked.
existence is fine, the problem is capitalism lol
Capitalism isn’t perfect, but no other system has provided so much for so many. Fact.
Saying “fact” after a stupid sentence doesn’t make it true.
Tell that to the mouse and bear.
Not just kids…
Now now, you shouldn’t put yourself down like that. I’m sure you’re not dumb.
You almost sound like PunnyName is the last remaining adult in the world
Wait. Am I not? Is this a simulation or not‽
Aww, shit…
They are. We’re all dead.
This is the shittiest afterlife.
What a time to be
alivedead!
If anyone has any right to shit on me, it’s me, baby!
“Kids are dumb” is your conclusion? Eff off. Adults fall for the same tricks kids do. Else things would cost $7.00 instead of $6.99.
Area is just hard to discern. Manipulating the radius a little bit will alter area quite significantly (because its quadratic) but you won’t be able to perceive it. By comparison, height is much easier to see. So you can decrease the radius a bit and add height some and you can fool people.
Same. They look like the small 25 cl energy drink cans, so even if they’re still 33 cl, they look smaller.
It’s usually very small, but here, prices must also show how much 100g/100ml of something costs
Then you get shops like M&S where all the expensive varieties of (for example) tomato are £/kg and the cheap ones are £/unit so you can’t see the big price gap.
Nah, in places where you’re obliged to put the price/kg on display that would be illegal. But writing a price per unit in LARGE font and adding a really small price per kilo would be a legal, albeit shitty, move
It still happens in Scandinavia where these laws exist, with e.g. toilet paper, where some are listed per kg, some per roll, and others per meter.
They are missing a chance to also sell per m2 and per cm3
FML, apparently it’s optional 🙄
Where is “here” approximately?
In the U.S. retailers are notorious for having the “unit” price of similar items being listed as (for example) $1.57/oz in one case and $2.23/count in another.
Not sure where that commenter is from, but it’s the case for Germany. Pretty useful to compare
At least in California in grocery stores they always have a per weight tag too. Problem is that it’s not always the same weight…
California also has the benefit of being able to choose the more
confusingconvenient unit, i.e. showing price in $/ounce, $/lb, $/kg, k$/stone, ounces of gold/handful, etc.
Well, since my instance is local I can just as well say that it’s Switzerland. Apparently it’s mandatory to label proces in a specific way. So far, I’ve never encountered the case that I wasn’t able to compare those prices between products of the same category.
EU has a directive about it. Prices must be shown in the proper unit, including all taxes and any “before” price if it’s on “sale”.
Do they happen to make this kind of sales, too?
I once had a chance to tell our local pub that their Chinese New Year sale sign is incorrect. They decided to put the sign in Chinese but got confused over how the discount is written in Chinese, so they wrote a price of +50% instead of -15%.
but why?
In Chinese the sale price is stated as the remaining part of the original, and it is written in tens of percents (折), so the full price is 10折, and 15% discount is 8.5折, but they had a sign of 15折. Google translate seems to think 15折 = 8.5折 but I would guess that it’s just AI outsmarting itself again. Now, a real person would probably be able to guess what was meant anyway, but it’s nice to write things correctly and not rely on guesswork
The specific rules are implemented in local laws, so it probably varies a bit from country to country, but generally it’s illegal to market something as a special offer unless it actually is cheaper than before. The sign says “save more”, which would be misleading marketing.
There are other ways to work around it though. For instance by alternating between two similar products biweekly, or simply by not having that specific product before Black Friday, making it appear like a special offer even if it’s sold at full price.
Thanks for the info, I will now know of more schemes to try to avoid.
Exactly this, they will put $/oz next to $/unit next to $/lb. It’s infuriating but I still take the time to do the math.
