But corporate leaders prefer another, more obscure term: “price pack architecture.”Executives at large companies mentioned “price pack architecture” twice as often during events with investors in the first quarter of this year versus the same period last year, according to a search of transcripts for U.S. companies with market values of $10 billion or more on AlphaSense, a data platform.
Technically, price pack architecture refers to a strategy in which a company adjusts a product’s packaging — “portion control” snack sizes, for example, or stay-fresh features like zipper bags — to offer consumers more options.
But companies have recently used the phrase almost exclusively euphemistically, to describe shrinking products, with price tags that are the same or higher than the ones they used to sell.
Companies sometimes do this to cover the rising costs of ingredients that go into their products.
But as companies’ costs have moderated, they’ve bolstered profits by lowering prices slowly, if at all.
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