More Applesauce, Please.

My daughter wanted some applesauce to eat with the Spanish tortilla that I'd prepared for dinner. It was somewhat an afterthought and when she grabbed the jar from the fridge she had to tip it upside down to try to persuade the remaining sauce out of the jar. She also retrieved a full jar from the basement pantry because she knew there wasn't going to be enough for everyone. As we began our meal, I looked over at the counter where my daughter's dish slowly filled as the remnants slowly dripped from the bottom of the container.

This situation confused me because more than two years ago I watched video of MIT researchers who invented a product called LiquiGlide. They applied this substance, that adheres to the inside of a jar, and demonstrated how every last drop just slides out of the bottle. Their video confirmed that there would no longer be a need to try and scrape out the bottom of catsup and other containers, like applesauce. Having solved that problem they provided hope that we could actually consume the products that we purchased.

As we discussed that invention and why it hadn't come to market I began reviewing the label of the Treetop applesauce that we were consuming. I initially felt bemused when I noticed the weight content of the applesauce. The printed label displays the weight as: 47.3 oz, 2lb 15.3 oz, and 1.34 kilograms. These measurements reflect the same weight. What I, at first, found amusing began to get at my capitalist nerves. It occurred to me that for most of my life applesauce came in 48 oz or 3 pound quantities.

So why the shift? Take a look at the bottles in your fridge. How many of them have flat bottoms? These applesauce jars sure don't. No, these bottles are made with an indentation in the bottom that eliminates .7 ounces of applesauce. The height of the bottle is the same; I assume this is so that the bottler didn't have to modify the assembly line as the bottles were filled, they just had to reduce the amount of product that filled the bottle. Thus the appearance deceives because the bottle is full, but there is less bottle than what your eye perceives.

These clever manufacturers have not only reduced the quantity of applesauce they inject but their bottle design ensures that we cannot conveniently consume the product they sold us. These two choices ensure that we will have to buy certain products more often. On an individual basis the expense seems minor, but when bottlers deal in millions and billions of products sold, the ability to skim off even small amounts that are either never given or impractical to use results in 100s of millions of dollars.

I appreciate any company's bottom line and desire to make a profit. But I beg, please return to an actual 48 oz bottle and integrate LiquiGlide so that I can enjoy my applesauce without any undue distress.