2026, Business, Fantasy, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Cereal Ploy

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I saw a funny meme on Facebook last week:

It made me laugh at the time but now I’m thinking that this has to be on purpose.  Cereals have been in non-resealable bags for decades now.  I can’t think of one single good reason except that not being able to re-seal the bags means the cereal gets stale faster and then we toss the stale stuff and buy new.   YA and I have quite a collection of clips that we use for cereal, veggie sausages, pasta, marshmallows – all items that aren’t re-sealable.  YA likes to sort these clips by colors on the hood of our oven.

Thinking about this of course led me to thinking about shampoo bottles.  According to the internet, shampoo companies began to use the phrase “lather, rinse and repeat” in the direction sections of their bottles.  I can’t find anything that specifies which company’s marketing department came up with it first but I’m guessing all the other companies jumped on that bandwagon as fast as their little feet would carry them.  I don’t know when consumers caught on and probably caused an uproar, but in checking the shampoo in our bathroom currently, one kind (baby shampoo) doesn’t say anything about repeating.  The Prell and the Head & Shoulders both now say “repeat if desired”.

So what will it take to get re-sealable cereal bags?  Another consumer revolution?

Anything you wish came in different packaging?

34 thoughts on “Cereal Ploy”

  1. I remember reading somewhere that the makers of laundry detergent were looking for a way to increase their profits. One of the marketing people suggested that maybe they could increase the size of the cap that consumers used to measure soap for each load. They did that and the profit results were substantial and the change was subtler than making the bottle smaller.
    It has been asserted more recently, and not by the manufacturers, that even the original measuring caps on the detergent bottles were far larger than required. A couple of tablespoons is sufficient.

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        1. Just asked for the book from the library. Is this going to be mind blowing? I hope so.

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  2. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am pulling out my soapbox to stand upon to issue a rant in answer to your question. Packaging in the USA is a spectacle of waste and customer abuse. We need to start over.

    1. The reclosable bags often do not re-close. The ridges that are to match up and lock do not do that. If cereal companies include them, they won’t work right anyway so I will be back to clips, clothes pins and rubber bands anyway. Freezer bags of frozen fruit are the worst.

    2. Hardware stores sell prepackaged bags of screws, nuts, etc, that give me many more than I need. Please sell them as needed. There are a few small stores that do this which pleases me.

    3. I want glass dairy bottles back. There are a few types of those that are re-usable. Unfortunately, I no longer drink milk so why am I crabbing about this anyway?

    4. Plastic bags. Bah Humbug. Why has Minnesota NOT banned these? I use re-usable bags at every turn, and STILL end up with wads of these in my closet. Each time I see one blowing around outside or stuck in a tree, I huff and puff self-righteously. But really, they are unnecessary and so bad for the environment.

    I am cutting myself off now. But again, Bah. Humbug.

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  3. I was replacing the button battery in a kitchen scale last week. The replacement battery was sealed in a sandwich of cardboard and two layers of tough plastic. Liberating it from its packaging required a stout pair of shears and more effort than should have been necessary. If all that packaging was aimed at theft prevention, what was to stop a would-be thief from simply pocketing the whole package? It wasn’t that large.
    On the subject of theft prevention, the Target nearest to me keeps jugs of laundry detergent in locked cases. Do they have a problem with shoplifters hiding laundry detergent jugs in their pants?

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    2. I just went through exactly this scenario a couple of days ago. For some reason, I have one pack of hearing aid batteries that sound exactly like your button battery packaging. I thought I was gonna have to nuke it to get the damn batteries out. Luckily for the safety of the planet, there are only eight batteries left in this pack, so one more month.

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  4. What Jacque said PLUS:

    Why are there so many ridges, ruts, nooks, and crannies in food jars?? Make them smooth so we can get all the peanut butter from the jar, etc.

    The plastic film coating on OTC drug and medicine bottle caps that is impossible to peel off without a sharp knife. Get rid of it.

    Oversized boxes on small items that mask the actual size of the product. Happens on eyedrops a lot and other pill bottles. Ditch the oversize cardboard box packaging and rightsize it.

    The flimsy “hanging loops” for products that hang from a protruding rod. Many break when you pull off an item to examine the package, so you can’t replace it on the rod. Please make those to last more than a week.

    Enough already. My blood pressure’s rising. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

    .

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    3. I switched from flonase to a generic several years ago because of their packaging. So much plastic. The generic comes in a box which is also too big for it, but at least you can get it open and get it out easily. It doesn’t hurt that it cost less as well. I hope the thin cardboard is more easily recycled than all that thick plastic.

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  5. Little bit OT, the concept and design of some packaging is quite ingenious.

    I’ve picked up some heavy parts from John Deere and it’s in a very heavy multi layer cardboard box that has “skids” built into it so as to pick up with a fork lift.
    Probably cheaper than the old wooden peach crates, and still recyclable and or made from recyclable.

    I had to replace a smoke detector the other day. The new one came with little 6 inch wires that I didn’t need. Kelly hesitated before throwing them away in case I wanted to save those. I pondered it only for a moment before throwing away. How many six inch wires do I need? honestly it’s really hard to get over that idea of everything being useful and I should save it for something.

    Reduce, reuse, recycle. Yes but…

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  7. I agree with all the comments I’ve read. I try to buy glass bottles because they’re more recyclable than plastic. You still have to get the labels off things in order to properly recycle them, which can be challenging and time consuming.

    There is even a lot of wasteful packaging at the Co-op. Co-ops used to be where you would buy in bulk and be forced to bring your own containers or bags. They’re becoming more and more like small, boutique grocery stores. They have updated some of the packaging in the deli though. I’ve noticed some coated paper containers for pre-packaged entrees in the deli section. Some of them fold shut like the boxes for Chinese take-out, without the silly wire handle. However, if you buy a package of chicken for dinner, it’s likely to be in a plastic tray that has a number 5 on it – not recyclable in our facility.

    I have a collection of boxes and bags that I keep in my car for grocery shopping. I wash, save, and re-use plastic bags until they leak or tear. I leave this in my shopping basket with cloth bags which I can grab and take in to the store with me.

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  9. And not packaging, but don’t get me started on the intentional shrinkage – remember when tuna cans were 6-1/2 ounces, instead of 5?

    And it might be a couple of decades ago now that they shrunk the width of toilet paper rolls from 4-1/2 inches to just under 4″. (Yes, I just measured… I had saved a couple of empty tubes, maybe for art projects or something – decided to keep ’em for proof!

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    2. I still have one of those old fashioned “keys” that we used to use on toothpaste tubes. It doesn’t work at all for the plastic tubes these days.

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    2. I haven’t switched yet but now that I’ve read Bill‘s comment about only needing 2 tablespoons of detergent, I think that makes the cost of the non-liquids even higher per wash? I think I’ll have to do this math on my own.

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  12. I’d avoid any cereal boxes that switched to ziplocs – It would require producing more plastic parts for every box. And if you recycle ziplocs you have to cut off the zipper part first, and the zipper becomes landfill.

    I generally don’t use any sort of bag clips for cereal, just fold the top of the bag over and tuck it down into the box. The shape of the box holds it in place, at least as far as it takes to make me declare it Good Enough.

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    2. The problem is that in our household, we have one person who definitely lives by the motto “good enough” and then the other person for whom the merest whiff of staleness can condemn a bag of cereal or chips … or anything. Hence all our clips.

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  13. Many of the brainstorming sessions I worked on with General Mills employees concerned coming up with new packaging ideas, often for cereal. The participants varied from session to session but the ideas were mostly the same. Nothing much came of any of it but they were trying.

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