Are Peanut Buster Parfaits smaller or am I just bigger?
July 25, 2015 6:35 PM Subscribe
As a young kid it seemed to me a Peanut Buster Parfait was hugely tall. Like 12 inches of ice cream. Now they just seem smaller. Is this a trick of my memory or has DQ downsized the parfait?
They may have. The Grocery Shrink Ray is a real thing. Anecdotally, I've noticed that the diameter of Reese's peanut butter cups have gone down slightly, and Burger King notably decreased the size of its burger patties a few years ago. Coke and Pepsi now both sell miniature six packs, as well, but those are obvious.
Shrinking the serving size slightly seems to be a favorite profit-boosting move for most food chains. Slicing into portion size allows the company to manufacture more product without buying more of the raw ingredient. As long as the packaging remains the same size, visually justifying the un-altered price, consumers don't notice until they've already purchased the item. Even if the company only gains .25 cents per shrunken item, they sell in large enough quantities to add up to a profit of millions.
posted by greenland at 9:44 AM on July 26, 2015
Shrinking the serving size slightly seems to be a favorite profit-boosting move for most food chains. Slicing into portion size allows the company to manufacture more product without buying more of the raw ingredient. As long as the packaging remains the same size, visually justifying the un-altered price, consumers don't notice until they've already purchased the item. Even if the company only gains .25 cents per shrunken item, they sell in large enough quantities to add up to a profit of millions.
posted by greenland at 9:44 AM on July 26, 2015
I haven't been to a DQ in ages and don't know what they're like now, but I worked at one in the late 1980s, and I can confirm they were not 12 inches tall at that time. I'd guess about 8 inches to the rim of the cup, or 9 to the top of the soft serve.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:52 AM on July 26, 2015
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:52 AM on July 26, 2015
Anecdotally, I have wondered the same.
posted by freezer cake at 4:47 PM on July 27, 2015
posted by freezer cake at 4:47 PM on July 27, 2015
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I'm relatively certain they haven't changed much, if at all, since 1994... but I don't have proof of that, just the memory of making them then and what they look like now.
And keep in mind that instructions for making these go by weight in oz, not height - so it's possible for different people to make them 1) "correctly" proportioned, 2) tall and skinny, or 3) short and stumpy, and all be the correct weight.
posted by stormyteal at 12:04 AM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]