Restaurants are scamming you out of your full drink.
Have you ever noticed how much ice goes into your glass when you order a drink at a restaurant? Have you ever payed $13 for a cup of ice? Implicitly cheating consumers is a scheme of corporate America to manipulate people into paying more money.
Every week 60 million people are getting robbed of their valuable money. Starbucks is a key example, a coffee company you can find nearly anywhere. This suggests a disturbing trend in restaurants around the United States. Too much ice! A student at Miss Porter’s School, a boarding school in Farmington, CT, where there happens to be a Starbucks frequented by many, insists, “It’s ridiculous. It’s a scam. It’s a capitalist scheme to make us pay for more than what we are getting.” (Pate) Do not just take a student’s perspective on this corporate crisis look to the judicial system.
In California and Illinois, two customers of Starbucks sued because of the misuse of ice to scam customers and give them less of a drink than they are paying. “Pincus’ suit says because of the amount of ice Starbucks uses in their iced beverages, customers often end up with half of the amount of drink that is listed on Starbucks’ menus in fluid ounces. The suit alleges that Starbucks is purposefully tricking customers into paying for more product than what they are provided with.” (Fieldstadt) This is just one quote from the lawsuit that took place in Illinois. This atrociousity can no longer be tolerated. For the skeptics wondering why I might be writing on a matter that seems trivial, this issue is not just a students issue but a worldwide issue.
Diving more into the appalling crimes of corporate America a student at Purdue University was interested in seeing how accurate the plaintiff’s claims were in the Illinois lawsuit. She set out to test three Starbucks locations in her local area; armed with her measuring cup in hand, she discovered that Starbucks swindles consumers out of both their valuable coffee and their valuable money. To reduce confounding variables the student bought the same grande ice coffee at each location which is roughly 16 oz. In the picture below, you can see that starbucks give out 63% less than what they are advertising.
Moreover, this despicable corporate scheme of shrinkflation has not only affected valuable coffee drinks, which 3 out of every 4 Americans have every day but is a regular occurrence throughout the food industry. Shrinkflation is when companies reduce the quantity or size of their product while the price of the product remains the same or slightly increases. “Package downsizing often takes place beyond consumer awareness…package downsizing has the potential to mislead consumers, which gives rise to serious moral and ethical consideration” (Golovacheva, 130). While this is not necessarily about Starbucks, it is important to note that the abhorrent scheme of capitalism affects consumers not only in our valuable coffee but in our everyday purchases. Begging the question, how is it reasonable for companies to knowingly mislead consumers? It is not.
Change cannot happen without someone tipping the first domino. Starbucks can be that domino. We, consumers, have the power to make the necessary changes in the industry that needs to be done. The question is how? Oftentimes many people only acknowledge an issue without putting in any effort to change or solve the problem. As I briefly implied, change does not need to be so large scale where in one day no corporate companies will exist. Change just needs to be a start. Something as simple as typing in your browser and going to change.org and looking up anti-corporate petitions that call for recognition of the crimes they commit every day. Shrinkflation and the Starbucks crisis are only one of the many problems that need to be solved in corporate America. And to quote Tony Robbins, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” (Keenan)
Works Cited
Allen, Lark. “2022 Coffee Statistics: Consumption, Purchases, and Preferences.” Market Research Companies New York, 2022, https://www.driveresearch.com/market-research-company-blog/coffee-survey/#:~:text=Below%20are%20some%20key%20takeaways,cups%20of%20coffee%20a%20day.
Bailoni, Elena Purdue University. “What Happened When I Put Starbucks’ Coffee to Ice Ratio to the Test.” Spoon University, 28 Apr. 2017, https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/is-starbucks-putting-too-much-ice-in-cold-drinks.
Creativeart. “Shining Business Businessman Finance Studio.” Freepik.com, n.d., https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/shining-business-businessman-finance-studio_990832.htm#query=crimes%20of%20corporate%20america&position=9&from_view=search&track=ais. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.
Fieldstadt, Elisha. “Half Full: Illinois Woman Sues Starbucks over Too Much Ice.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 2 May 2016, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/half-full-woman-sues-starbucks-over-too-much-ice-n565586.
Golovacheva, Ksenia S. “(Un) fairness of Shrinkflation: the Role of Consumer-, Firm-, and Marketrelated Factors.” (2016).
Keenan, Michael. “200+ Motivational Quotes to Inspire and Win 2023.” Shopify, 1 Dec. 2022, https://www.shopify.com/blog/motivational-quotes.
Pate, Zainab. “Starbucks Coffee to Ice Ratio.” 9 Dec. 2022.
Stojanovic, Milica, et al. “15 Starbucks Statistics for True Coffee Lovers.” ComfyLiving, 6 Jan. 2023, https://comfyliving.net/starbucks-statistics/#:~:text=How%20many%20people%20drink%20Starbucks,basis%2C%20according%20to%20Starbucks%20statistics.
Team, CFI. “Shrinkflation.” Corporate Finance Institute, 22 Dec. 2022, https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/shrinkflation/ .