Where are My Chips?!

Nearly Empty Bags of Chips

Excessive packaging of chips is being issued in many countries all around the world. Many bags of chips have lots of air inside or have bigger boxes than the food inside. Many customers are mad about these because almost all of them have experienced these kinds of trickery.

In fact the air inside a bag of chips is nitrogen. And it protects our chips from getting smashed into small pieces. So this is what chips companies say when they get claims on too much air inside the bags. However, people thinks although the nitrogen is necessary to protect the food inside, it seems there are too much of it and too little food to eat. What makes them more upset is the increasing price of the food. Although the amount of the chips has been lessened for the last few years, the prices of them have gone higher than before. Now there is even a joke like: I bought a bag of air and the company is nice enough to put some chips in it.   

Also here is a parody video showing too much air in a bag of chips.

These behaviors of companies are causing quite an affect to themselves too. The major reason of it is the SNS. Nowadays, when people get air bags with unacceptably little amount of chips and lots of nitrogen inside, they upload video or photos of it and complain about it to the world. These rumors are easily spread globally and can negatively affect company’s image. Not only this, but recently, people can easily buy the products made in other countries, including chips. Therefore, it there are some companies which make food without conscience, customers can easily turn their backs and buy food from overseas companies, which might be cheaper with more food inside. This is actually happening in Korea recently. The domestic chip companies are lack of conscience on the packaging and price of the chips they make. So the customers prefer chips from other countries more than the ones from Korea.

My Opinion

I understand that some nitrogen is necessary for the chips to protect the contents. However, I think what many companies are doing is way too much. It just seems like they are making fun of the customers. I also had many experiences like this. Especially when eating those chips from Korean brands. You cannot understand how vain it is unless you have experienced excessively packaged foods. Some companies really need to have more conscience on what they are selling.

First of all, I assert that consumers union should make an agreement with companies or governments and set some laws about the appropriate ratio of food and nitrogen. Not only the nitrogen, but there need to be some laws to ban excessive packaging, especially too huge boxes. The penalty can be done by banning the product and paying a huge amount of fine. Moreover, customers’ boycott on some of the excessively packaged products will also helpful to change the situation.

For instance, recently some university students in Korea made a boat with chip bags and crossed Han River in Korea. This was to mock the ‘too-much-air-filled chips’ in Korea. (They successfully crossed the river only with the chip bags since there was so much air inside the bags.

Too Much Air in Potato Chip Packets? South Korean Students Prove It: A group of South Korean students made a raft using unopened potato chip packets to float on Seoul’s main river (click link to watch the video)

If the companies do not change such unscrupulous behaviors, they will soon fail in the market. The reason is that in the globalized world, we – the customers – have so many different kinds of products to choose from in all over the world. Therefore, the customer has so much power than the sellers. In addition, unless there are such restrictions against their conscienceless behaviors, the companies will never try to change. Through some lawful acts and customer’s efforts, we will be able to eat right amount of food with appropriate price without being deceived by their external appearance.

Well, try this link to learn more about the product packaging issue: 

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/shopping/product-packaging/overview/product-packaging-ov.htm