this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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This is a minor one, but I swear that the wraps in the Old El Paso fajita kits are getting smaller and smaller. Probably worth just buying normal wraps and getting the seasoning and salsa separately.
everything is getting smaller. they did research years ago that showed consumers are less outraged by less product than they are by higher prices
“I don’t care about petrol prices. I always fill up for 20 bucks.”
LOL, my roommate has the same "logic". She was trying to get me to buy Hello Fresh boxes, and when I told her it was too expensive she said "Its the same price as regular groceries, you just get less servings."
i also had a roommate who had a shocking wake-up when i told him about the "whipped" peanut butter he was raving about. yea the reason it's "less sugar" is because it's less product. they literally whip air into the peanut butter, advertise it as "less sugar," and then sell it to you at the same price as the regular version. we confirmed it by comparing the net weight against an old jar of the regular he had
The species is doomed.
On the same note: taco bell in the UK.
When they first started out you'd get these large cheesy meaty beany burritos and fajitas so stuffed with ingredients that your mouth would salivate when just thinking of the name.
Now? Flatbread wrapped around some sparse ingredients, freshly microwaved.... minimum order £15.
I'm a terrible/lazy cook, but even I could do better.
I must have missed the golden age. Taco Bell opened in my town in 2021, and I've only eaten in there a couple of times because it's dire. Small, scraggly little wraps with barely any filling (and the filling they do have is bland and crap; they don't seem to sell a single spicy item on the menu).
We're not exactly overwhelmed with Mexican restaurants, but even if I wanted a taco I still wouldn't bother.
I can attest that the tacos in their taco kits have shrunk considerably. We're usually left with a few taco shells after mostly using a taco kit, so we'd buy another kit and a loose pack of taco seasoning for the next time around.
I didn't take a pic but last time we did this, the tacos from the new kit were 3/4 the size of the tacos from the old one. That's the last taco kit I'll ever buy from them and I was mad enough to send them a complaint.
I recently used just some smoked paprika for the same job. It was much nicer than the OEP spice mixture, and a lot cheaper
Might have to try that. I find the Sainsbury's own fajita kit to be way cheaper and nicer than the OEP version too.
If you like cheaper and nicer, the next step is making your own wraps. There's a bit of a knack to it, so they'll get better with practice. Basically just flour (plain white flour is fine, or add a variable portion of maize flour (I'm avoiding calling it corn flour because that generally means corn starch, and here you want actual flour made from ground dried corn)), drop of oil (optional), salt & water.
Noticeably better than the off-the-shelf ones, due to all the preservatives and what-not that you don't need to add if you're not planning to keep them on a supermarket shelf for 3 months.
It's never even occurred to me to make our own wraps! Will have to give it a go.
That's not enshitification?
Well I guess it's shrink-flation but it arguably comes under the umbrella or enshitification.
How so?
"first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
This is just being mega pedantic for no reason, seems like everyone else is getting the gist of the thread just fine.
Christ I just saw that you're OP. I'm confused; why did you use the word "enshittification" if you didn't know what it meant?
LOL