A SHIELD FOR THE SHOPPER
Hart, Senator Philip A.
A Shield for the Shopper by SENATOR PHILIP A. HART A s I passed by the television set a few nights ago, my eye was caught by the picture of a running antelope trying to escape a pursuing...
...The elimination of "cents-off" claims or "economy-sized" designations...
...The manufacturer must make his products known and available while the consumer, voting with his dollars, decides which products will remain on the market and which will not...
...Our witnesses pointed out dozens of parallel confusions and absurdities they encountered...
...Time after time, we have seen cases where manufacturers were forced into questionable packaging practices to keep up with some competitor who had found a new way to puff up his package...
...I am convinced that sensible ground rules will ease many headaches in the packaging business...
...was the next question...
...Cents off" what regular price...
...The free enterprise system depends on the theory that the manufacturer who provides the best quality at the best price will be rewarded by success...
...f The establishment of "serving" standards...
...The Truth in Packaging bill that I have introduced in the Senate (a companion bill has been presented in the House) is one attempt to put the consumer on a more equal footing with the manufacturer...
...Here are some goals the Truth in Packaging bill is designed to achieve: f The prohibition of illustrations that deceive the consumer as to content...
...The package, after all, is the only "salesman" a shopper meets in the market these days...
...Forty...
...Could we come back to that later...
...Here is a box of spaghetti...
...After that came "Jumbo...
...That's the smallest we have," said the clerk, smiling a little sheepishly...
...Chocolate chips, for example, should be as evident in the cookies as they are in the package illustration...
...This size box was long a familiar standard on supermarket shelves until one manufacturer came out with a larger container...
...Not long ago, this same brand came in a quart container of traditional design—a thick-waisted bottle of the type commonly used for dozens of liquids: beer, cleansers, and soda pop...
...A Truth in Packaging law would have another, more subtle, yet perhaps more important effect on the economy...
...Isolated examples...
...Then the helicopter swooped low, someone shot a dart full of a tranquilizer into the animal's flank, and before long it toppled over on its side to await the net...
...A Shield for the Shopper by SENATOR PHILIP A. HART A s I passed by the television set a few nights ago, my eye was caught by the picture of a running antelope trying to escape a pursuing helicopter...
...The irony, of course, is that all of these laws—once enacted—benefited business as well as the consumer...
...Someone suggested that housewives do not often have cost charts available, either...
...The picture on the carton shows a single luscious wedge of pie...
...But market basket purchases account for about twenty-one per cent of the average family's budget, and sales of commodities covered by the bill total some $63 billion annually...
...The new bottle was so successful, incidentally, that most competitors adopted it along with a similarly disguised price increase...
...The larger box is marked "New, improved...
...He was handed one marked "Giant...
...He held the box up to show that the net weight was marked on the front panel...
...And —in all cases—it would be required that net weight be prominently displayed...
...That is eighteen per cent less product in a box twenty per cent bigger...
...Here on my desk, for example, is a bottle of salad oil—a newly-designed bottle with a streamlined figure...
...51 The adoption of regulations that would make it difficult for manufacturers to disguise price increases by reducing package content...
...Fortified with this protection, the consumer would have little to fear from the dart guns of deception...
...Now take a look at this carton...
...Yet the box holds only ten and one-half ounces—an ounce and a half less than the old box...
...The bill has stirred up formidable industry opposition, although a number of manufacturers testified that the bill would be welcome protection against less scrupulous competitors...
...Success in business comes to depend more on gimmickry than on value...
...vulnerable to an army of motivational researchers and promotion specialists who are quite prepared to swoop down and tranquilize us with misleading information and clever deceptions...
...Perhaps the consumer will get a bargain, perhaps he won't...
...he asked...
...Purcell...
...I was as impressed by them as I was by the dart guns used by big game hunters...
...The executive thought a minute...
...Not at all...
...How much filet of sole, for example, will "serve four...
...One label is stamped "ten cents off," the other, "fifteen cents off...
...Instead of having competing brands selling in thirteen and one-half, fifteen and one-fourth, and eighteen and one-half ounce packages, would it not be easier if they all came in one pound containers or multiples of one pound...
...Cost comparisons were easy because prices were based on honest pounds and whole ounces instead of fractions...
...Because we so often talked in terms of pennies here and nickels there, it sometimes seemed that we were dealing with an insignificant portion of the economy...
...The box was only half full...
...Now for the delicately administered sting...
...Modern supermarkets, on the other hand, don't "sell" anything...
...They serve as display depots that are in the business of renting out shelf space to manufacturers for the highest possible rental;—rental that depends on markup and turn-over...
...It is in this atmosphere that the housewife must divide twelve and one-fourth ounces into thirty-four cents while simultaneously worrying about her time expiring on a parking meter, and her two children who just disappeared behind the meat counter...
...The bill constitutes undue government interference...
...Unhappily, the history of self-regulation in this field inspires no confidence that it will be more successful in the future...
...One of our witnesses told of entering a drug store and asking for a small tube of toothpaste...
...The face of the package is six inches high and seven and one-half inches wide...
...The third argument is a venerable one that has been used in vain many limes to oppose such other Federal "infringements" as those provided under the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and even the Food and Drug Act...
...How much does the soap you have there cost the housewife per ounce...
...I don't have my cost charts with me," offered Mr...
...The theory, in turn, depends on the consumer making wise choices...
...But slick, new marketing methods are being spawned daily and most of us find ourselves increasingly PHILIP A. HART is a Democratic Senator from Michigan...
...My wife—who is an excellent mathematician—tells me it is very difficult sometimes to compute the cost per ounce of competing products...
...The next size larger was labeled "Family...
...f The prevention of the use of packages that might deceive the consumer as to content...
...The deadline for this article had crept up on me and I was rereading some testimony that told of the many scientific innovations used by the modern merchandiser...
...A family making buying decisions on the basis of rationality, instead of merchandising hoopla, could save $200 to $300 a year...
...The supermarket and pre-packaged foods originally were designed to save money for consumers through mass marketing...
...And the evidence is overwhelming that existing laws are wholly inadequate to cope with the present confusion of pre-packaged merchandising devices...
...The exhibits were picked up at random in chain supermarkets...
...The show was intended as a tribute to modern efficiency but somehow my sympathies were with the antelope...
...And because even a momentary lag in sales can sweep a product off the market, any successful packaging gimmick must be swiftly imitated by competitors interested in their own survival...
...These imply a control over retail price that the manufacturer does not have...
...Spurred by fierce competition, merchandisers devote weeks and months to polishing their techniques while the average consumer can devote only an occasional hour, often in vain, to digging out the factual information which is her only defense...
...The use of fractional ounces," I pointed out, "is one of the consumer complaints we've heard most often...
...It held a frozen cherry pie...
...The simple purpose of the Truth in Packaging measure is to give the consumer the information needed to make a sound, reasonably-swift shopping decision and to ensure that the package fairly represents the product inside...
...Next, two cans of coffee...
...The increasing difficulty of making a rational choice is perhaps best illustrated by the series of exhibits introduced during the lengthy hearings on packaging which I conducted as chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee...
...Purcell said that he could answer much more swiftly if a conversation had not been going on...
...The antelope is a naturally suspicious and wary animal," the narrator was saying smoothly, "and there was a time when he was extremely difficult to capture...
...One pound or four forksful...
...In fact, honest packaging tends to be driven, off the market by slick practices...
...We found some products that have been "cents off" since they went on the market years ago...
...Off what...
...The bill has only one basic purpose: to allow the shopper the opportunity to make a rational buying choice...
...Some of the most telling testimony came unwittingly from a top executive of a major detergent company who appeared with a number of aides to testify against the bill...
...The designers went to work and the result was the bottle contoured like a shapely woman...
...These days, the wary shopper should regard a "new, improved" package with as much suspicion as a knowledgeable antelope anxiously watching an approaching helicopter...
...Along the visible side of the wedge we can count thirty-seven cherries...
...f The establishment of standard weights and measures in which certain product lines could be sold...
...Remember, the old bottle contained a quart...
...It is true that the new bottle costs the shopper a few cents less...
...By this time, I felt the point had been made, and we went on to something else...
...We pressed him for an answer...
...Arguments against the bill boil down to: f Industry can do the job with self-regulation...
...His chief suggested once again that we come back to the matter later...
...Same brand, same size, same shelf...
...5[Present labeling laws are adequate...
...The window is empty...
...Who knows...
...There is a cellophane window at the bottom of the front panel so you can view the wholesome contents...
...Well, Mr...
...Or take a box of shredded wheat...
...I left the room then because I was busy studying the high degree of modern efficiency directed at capturing the dollars of the American consumer...
...Deceptive, confusing, or misleading packaging causes shoppers to make poor choices, harming themselves and the honest manufacturer...
...This purpose will be defeated if we do not establish ground rules that will make sense out of the present chaos of packaging practices...
...Purcell bent over his pencil and pad...
...Some years ago, the housewife dealt with a grocer who discussed values and then personally filled many of the packages the customer carried home...
...But, turn the box upside down...
...Its front panel measures eight and one-fourth inches square...
...seemed the logical question...
...And how many cherries were inside the entire pie...
...The American shopper has grown as wary and suspicious as any antelope and she has the additional advantage of being generally as intelligent as her pursuers...
...Why the change...
...It seemed that motivational researchers reported to the A Shield for the Shopper by SENATOR PHILIP A. HART manufacturer that women associated oil with calories and the thick-waisted bottle subconsciously warned them off lest their own figures follow suit...
...But the price per ounce of oil is significantly higher...
...The executive answered that this was really no serious problem...
...The elimination of meaningless designations such as "jumbo" and "giant half-quart...
...Paraphrasing, but without damage to essential accuracy, here is what occurred: At one point the detergent executive was discussing a new box of washing powder that weighed twelve and one-fourth ounces and sold for thirty-four cents...
...Well, if you can find the printed content on the new bottle (which is not easy), you discover it holds one and one-half pints of oil...
...But since the manufacturer does not control retail price, it was a question that could not be answered...
...Purcell here can answer that," the executive sighed, waving toward an aide...
...In some cases, slack fill is unavoidable but there seems little excuse for the four-inch candy bar in the six-inch cardboard tray, or for that spaghetti box mentioned earlier...
Vol. 27 • July 1963 • No. 7
