Taco Shells

[Cindy Rafferty]

I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed. I made some tacos with Old El Paso Taco Shells recently, and it appears that the size of the shells has been downsized! Even my husband noticed: it looks about the size of a taco for a toddler. The box looks the same, 12 come in it with a weight of 4.6 oz.
This size taco doesn't hold much at all!

I just called Old El Paso at (800)-300-8664 to share my observations. I asked that they please bring back the size of the previous shell....even it they have to charge more! I know that other food manufacturers have done this and gotten away with it: coffee, chips, etc. but it's pretty noticable in a taco shell!

[AD]

I have a similar problem with J&J Snack Foods Super Pretzels. I eat them every day for breakfast; they are SO good! Anyway, they did look different and I weighed them on my kitchen scale, and I WAS cheated! In fact, nearly every box has had and still has some "shrunken" pretzels in it. I called to complain, but it does no good.

[Vanessa]

Oh yes! I just read your post Cindy to my DH. This week I made Tacos (Old El Paso) and the first thing he remarked was about this "snack" size. I like you looked at the package and weight. They REALLY downsized these tacos. My DH wrote them a letter. It is totally ridiculous & I bet they thought noone would notice? I agree with you they should bring back the reg size. I will also call them this week.

[Cindy Rafferty]

I checked briefly in a store today. It appears that Ortega still offers 12 taco shells weighing in at 5.8 oz. Hopefully, they won't change!

[Chef Cindy]

I have noticed this problem with a few things such as coffee, cat food and tortilla chips. I guess the companies don't want to raise the price, so they down size the package. It throws me off a little until I figure out why something looks so different.

[This message has been edited by Chef Cindy (edited 05-12-2001).]

[dncomom]

Cindy, I am just curious...what did they say when you called them? "We have had a lot of calls about this" or "thank you for calling. We'll pass this along..."

[crlykat]

Interesting. I noticed this phenomena also with Rold Gold pretzels. One of the versions has considerably less in the package than it used to, but sells for the same price. I read somewhere recently that many companies are starting to downsize the actual amount you are getting; as long as they have the actual product's ounces listed on the package, they are in the clear.
I think it stinks!

[gertdog]

Funny, we had tacos last week too. Had a few shells left from an Ortega box, then opened up a box of Old El Paso. Those Old El Paso shells sure look tiny next to the Ortega ones! My SO made tacos out of the Ortega shells, but then just made a small "taco salad" on his plate and used pieces of OEP shells for dipping. They were too small to put much filling in.

I'm curious to hear what the customer service people said!

[Cindy Rafferty]

The woman that I talked too was polite, but didn't at first understand what I was talking about, she thought there was something wrong with the tacos. Once I explained that they were fine except for the size, she said they would submit this to manufacturing.

The problem with downsizing taco shells was mentioned: you can't use them anymore for proper filling. It's easier to get away with doing this with other products: just put less in the package. I'd rather pay more and get the regular size tacos back!