For some reason, those taller cans even feel like less. Maybe because they are so thin. We have them for several years here in Germany.
Stupid shape for a can too, tips over In a vehicles cup holder
Uses more aluminum to store the same amount of liquid too.
I thought the cand were extruded from discs… Maybe they use a larger disc, but I think the taller cans have thinner walls.
Source: https://youtu.be/V4TVDSWuR5E
You sure about that?
Cylinders of the same volume will have the same area, so it should be the same amount of aluminum?
Maybe less, even, since the lid and bottom are thicker than the sides and on the taller can there’s less of that thick top/bottom
same size top/bottom for both; only difference is that the standard has a wider body bevel, and the sleek can goes nearly straight down. same lid on both cans, as well. not sure what it does for the scaled material cost, but since the lid is by far the most expensive part, it’s probably negligible, compared to the ability to inflate the price on a taller can.
I can’t fully explain the trend, but ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverages are a big hit for the industry, and even moreso when presented in the truly/high noon shape. maybe it’s a generational thing? I don’t get it, but I’m also not the target demographic.
bonus fact: the conversion costs of filling sleek cans is pretty steep for most independent brewers, so craft beer will take a couple years to adapt, if ever.
The easiest way to imagine how cylinders have different surface area for a given volume, is imagine how closely a shape matches a sphere, it should have a lower surface area.
Imagine a soda can with the width of one water molecule. The cross section of that can would be on the order of four aluminum atoms for that hair thin can. Then imagine a can that’s nearly a cube or a sphere and how all the liquid can be hiding behind other liquid atoms: hence fewer can atoms per liquid volume.
Blood vessels have high surface area. A pint of blood has low.
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Ignore things like the bevel, wall thickness, etc. Just calculating for a basic right cylinder, you can see how the surface area changes for different heights with a constant volume. I’ve outlined the standard dimensions of a can(inches).
https://youtu.be/gL3HxBQyeg0I had a feeling it’d math out something like that if I opened my fat mouth, lol
I do wonder if thickness of the walls or lid/bottom does have an effect, though, as there must be some reason they make these weird ass cans
The lid uses more aluminum than the rest of the can, making that smaller will have a bigger impact than the height of the can.
and both of those cans use the same size lid
there must be some reason
Just a marketing trick IIRC, since energy drinks got popular and beer cans got unpopular among gen z.
True, look at the seltzer market for instance.
pretty sure it just lets them fit more cans into the same box for shipping, same logic as how you can pack more sand into a box than you can pebbles
a sphere (think bubbles) minimizes area for a given volume
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not using much more. And if the prices are correct in OP, the markup on the new can is way higher than any extra cost they are incurring from additional raw materials. They probably had some marketing study show that a taller looking can makes consumer’s less angry about a price increase or some other crazy nonsense.
I always thought that narrower pressure vessels could contain higher pressure, because the curvature is more severe, meaning that for a vessel that needs to retain a similar level of pressure, you could just use less material in the walls of the vessel. Is this not the case with these new cans, and they have the same wall thickness, or is the tradeoff just one that still works out to be in favor of more total aluminum usage?
Force inside a cylinder vessel is just pressure times surface area. If you have the same pressure(soda carbonation) with more surface area, then you are putting less force on the walls. I don’t have any specialty in the materials engineering for canning, but i suppose less force on the walls means you could use thinner materials. However, soda can walls are already pretty thin to start with and from what I can find online, the tops are usually 2.5-3 times thicker. So, I could see it potentially cutting some cost from the tops by making them thinner but i doubt they are manufacturing different tops. It’s probably just marketing.
That can’t be true.
Consider a cylinder cut in half, giving a circular cross section. Cover each new circular gap with new aluminum.
Now you’ve enclosed the same volume in cylinders, with a different surface area.
You also created 2 cylinders where once there was one, which is not what was being discussed. You even mention that you added material:
Cover each new circular gap with new aluminum
I could have said “2 cylinders of the same volume” but I felt context made that clear
Yes I did say that I added material. That’s the point: you cannot do this transformation without adding material.
But you’re saying this is only with two cylinders?
Shady backdoor deal with bounty I bet
Also more surface area, so it will warm up sooner (I think?)
It’s usually very small, but here, prices must also show how much 100g/100ml of something costs
Then you get shops like M&S where all the expensive varieties of (for example) tomato are £/kg and the cheap ones are £/unit so you can’t see the big price gap.
Nah, in places where you’re obliged to put the price/kg on display that would be illegal. But writing a price per unit in LARGE font and adding a really small price per kilo would be a legal, albeit shitty, move
It still happens in Scandinavia where these laws exist, with e.g. toilet paper, where some are listed per kg, some per roll, and others per meter.
They are missing a chance to also sell per m2 and per cm3
FML, apparently it’s optional 🙄
Where is “here” approximately?
In the U.S. retailers are notorious for having the “unit” price of similar items being listed as (for example) $1.57/oz in one case and $2.23/count in another.
At least in California in grocery stores they always have a per weight tag too. Problem is that it’s not always the same weight…
California also has the benefit of being able to choose the more
confusingconvenient unit, i.e. showing price in $/ounce, $/lb, $/kg, k$/stone, ounces of gold/handful, etc.
Not sure where that commenter is from, but it’s the case for Germany. Pretty useful to compare
Exactly this, they will put $/oz next to $/unit next to $/lb. It’s infuriating but I still take the time to do the math.
Well, since my instance is local I can just as well say that it’s Switzerland. Apparently it’s mandatory to label proces in a specific way. So far, I’ve never encountered the case that I wasn’t able to compare those prices between products of the same category.
EU has a directive about it. Prices must be shown in the proper unit, including all taxes and any “before” price if it’s on “sale”.
Do they happen to make this kind of sales, too?
I once had a chance to tell our local pub that their Chinese New Year sale sign is incorrect. They decided to put the sign in Chinese but got confused over how the discount is written in Chinese, so they wrote a price of +50% instead of -15%.
but why?
In Chinese the sale price is stated as the remaining part of the original, and it is written in tens of percents (折), so the full price is 10折, and 15% discount is 8.5折, but they had a sign of 15折. Google translate seems to think 15折 = 8.5折 but I would guess that it’s just AI outsmarting itself again. Now, a real person would probably be able to guess what was meant anyway, but it’s nice to write things correctly and not rely on guesswork
The specific rules are implemented in local laws, so it probably varies a bit from country to country, but generally it’s illegal to market something as a special offer unless it actually is cheaper than before. The sign says “save more”, which would be misleading marketing.
There are other ways to work around it though. For instance by alternating between two similar products biweekly, or simply by not having that specific product before Black Friday, making it appear like a special offer even if it’s sold at full price.
Thanks for the info, I will now know of more schemes to try to avoid.
Soda is such a fucking profitable scam because it’s mostly water and that resource is mostly free. The syrup and carbonation should be pennies compared to what it actually sells for.
Water is far from “mostly free”, especially at the amounts used by soda makers
Don’t know the situation in america so what you say may be true, but on some countries (developing ones where the power of the state is diminished) water is not free for everybody else, but multinational corporations get almost unlimited use concessions for their bottlers for a laughably low fee if any, drying out the area and sometimes literally leaving towns or regions with no public water left for other uses, forcing the people to have to pay for other sources. I don’t live in a place in that situation yet, but some other regions in my country are going exactly through that. In some cases, those beverages are for the american market.
It probably not that cheap anywhere in the U.S., but on the other hand, they probably get enough tax breaks to make up for it.
Here in Germany they can extract millions of liters for a symbolic euro, that is basically free and also far from a third world country. Coke has enough power to get through with this.
That’s a 2.24x price increase. That’s even beyond Argentina-hyperinflation levels of increase. Are we sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison? Like, was there a sale or bulk discount that made the shorter can relatively cheaper? I’m struggling to believe a retailer would engage in such a brazen markup in a single week. (Not to say it’s not possible, but it’s extreme enough that I’m not taking the word of some random hand-written graphic on the Internet.)
It’s not an apples to apples comparison. This was a reddit post made by someone who went out of their way to buy things for different amounts to make ragebait.
It’s a dumb post and it is safe to ignore it. Sadly someone reposted it here.
I mean… I’ll regularly go to the grocery store and see soda prices vary by 200-300% week-to-week. Sure, it’s all based around “sale” value, but it amounts to the same thing. If it’s $9 for 2 12-packs one week and then $11 for a 12-pack the next week, it isn’t an invalid markup because you had to buy 2 to get the first price.
It probably costs more to distribute the new can shape since our entire civilization’s can infrastructure is built around a standard can.
I’m more inclined to blame the manufacturer for the price increase (in this case Coke) as opposed to the retailer. Especially in this case, I kinda doubt a company as large as Coke would allow retailers to stray from the price they want by more that a few cents.
This must be that soft landing 3% inflation I’ve been hearing all about.
We’ve had these types of cans for years and years and years where I’m from, but they were expensive before the switch too.
Y’all, remember this is sugar water and even at $1.06 there’s a significant profit margin.
Is not even sugar water, it’s corn tea with artificial flavors and colors.
Depends on the country. Corn syrup in everything is a distinctly American phenomenon
If you look at the picture you might be able to tell where it was taken. There are some pretty good hints.
Yeah, it certainly doesn’t seem like their production costs would increase much from inflation…
They don’t increase from inflation. The price increase is inflation and I think it’s an important distinction to make.
if you’re buying coke in america, you should get the 12 packs at grocery stores instead. it’s anywhere between $5.99 to $8.99, which is less than a dollar per can
Not on sale? Where I am, I only see the $7 price when it’s on sale and you have to buy 3. So it’s 2 for $10 and get one free. Without that the normal price is about $10. The best sales that come around during big holidays only are buy 2 get 2 free, which brings it down to $5.
most people are getting cans like that in a pinch tho, if you want a lot of cola, regular 2 liter plastic bottles (or even better, 6-packs of 1.5/2l) are a much better deal
Water.
Wow good point! Water IS cheaper than coke! And healthier too I’m sure! It’s a damn shame we’re talking about coke and not water, or else I’m sure someone would give you a prize for your thoughtful and original comment.
Agua
水
you’d be surprised how often bottled coke is cheaper than bottled water
That’s fucking crazy. I stopped buying soda pre-covid, but I regularly got 4 12packs for $2.99 each up until at least 2019.
Or get the 2L bottles, which are usually around the same price as the 500 mL bottles (for some reason).
Because if you drink 500ml of a 2L bottle and put the cap back on, the rest goes flat.
Are you screwing the cap on all the way?
IME, not only no, but they will yell at the housemate who does for putting it on too tight.
It used to drive me mental when people would complain about how tight I’d screw the cap on. What do you even think the point of that thing is?!
Yes, it probably won’t be completely flat after half a liter but the fizzyness will be noticeably weaker and will only get worse the more you drink, especially if you don’t get to it soon. Two liters are ok if you’re sharing them with multiple people who will finish it right away or the next day but they suck for one person unless you drink a ridiculous amount of soda.
I think you’re just shaking it too much. If you are gentle to avoid losing the carbonation and put the cap on tight, it can last for days.
And if you think you can dodge microplastics by opting for aluminum instead of bottles, I have some bad news for you.
:(
Fuck corporations but I don’t believe this for a second. People are just making this shit up now. Some dude scribbles some prices on a piece of paper and this whole website loses its mind.
I was going to say… who the fuck was paying $1.06/can for Coke to begin with? Hell, I saw one of those 32oz Big Gulp cups selling for $4 less than a week ago.
This all just looks made up and hysterical, because Americans cannot handle not having their sugary treats.
500 mL,1 L, and 2 L of Coke all cost $3 here.
which is how they get you to drink MORE coke
Not from the US, Coke was always around 1.05 - 1.20 USD where I lived in the early 2010s. Haven’t been drinking too much of it since then so IDK. But Coke is irrationally cheap in the US apparently. Or it’s just the old before/after taxes shenanigans again?
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This is testable. Go to the grocery store. Buy staple goods. Keep receipt. Buy the same products the next week.
Why not post with the receipts instead of marker?
Consuming that utterly unhealthy drink is the real trickflation.
The great thing is you don’t need it.
Better off without it
At least it’s still original taste …
Always purchase by volume/weight, not container
do other countries not have comparative price? here in sweden that’s listed right under the absolute price, e.g. a bottle of soda might cost 2 bucks and the comparative cost is 1.8$ per liter.
my dad drives me mad because he utterly ignores that and instead manually tries to estimate the comparative price, it’s baffling
I’m in the US where it’s not mandatory. It’s up to the consumer to do the math, just like sales tax.
It’s not always an available option. If an ink maker deprecates old containers and starts selling smaller ones for almost the same price you can’t just buy something else if you need consistency. Coca-Cola probably thinks that you can’t just replace Coca-Cola®™© with substitutes and I know some people would agree
Well, I meant within brands. Drug packages are the worst. I’ve seen two boxes of the same drug side by side and the smaller box had more tablets. That is to say, containers can be deceptive. Look at the volume and weight of the product.
Have yet to see those, but I met packaging for 1 (yes, one) capsule that was about half of a phone size, looked like the usual package for 20 something tablets. In this case it could be a matter of standard package though
But then there’s Velaxin that was cheaper in 20×75mg pack then 20×32.5mg, and this I cannot understand ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We’ve had those bottles for years now here in Sweden.
The reason for the change to the taller thinner can is because the amount of aluminium used in the top and bottom is less. The top and bottom in an aluminum can is the thickest parts.
The price increase has nothing to do with it though…
While the chapter can statement us true, they definitely took the chance to up the price if the dates match. Capitalism at it’s best.
How is the top smaller though? It looks identical. There must be another reason.
Search on YouTube to see how aluminium cans are made and you’ll understand why the “lid” and bottom is where the aluminium is thicker (as compared to the “walls”).
I don’t mean it’s not thicker, i mean it looks like it has the same diameter.
