Some days feel harder than others; the things you shake off one day are the things digging their way under your skin the next
Scam calls. Hidden costs. One-berry-three-ways on your parfait.
The chiseling feels relentless, a metronome of mundane indignities.
For TikToker JP (@jmartinneque), the disparity between what was promised and what was delivered was enough to ruin her Monday. It left her fuming.
What happened with her Chick-fil-A order?
As a nurse, she works long hours and makes good money. For that money at a recent Chick-fil-A, she got three pieces of strawberry and three blueberries on her parfait. “Bro, life is a bunch of bull…BS,” she said.
In the video, JP pulls the aforementioned parfait out of the carryout bag and shows a sad-looking snack to the camera. “Look at this,” she says in an unhappy tone. “What is this?”
Then she goes on, “I asked the lady, ‘Is this all the fruit I get with the yogurt?’ And she said ‘Yes, three strawberries, three blueberries.”
Additionally, in a note that pops on the screen, JP notes that “at best this is one whole strawberry smh.” Then the screen shows the advertising Chick-fil-A website image of the parfait. It is stacked high with a tempting assortment of strawberries, blueberries, and a little sprinkle of granola. Across the top of the video–which has been viewed about 354,000 times–is the sentence, “I should sue for false advertising.”
Consequently, the soul-sucking feeling of getting sold a bill of goods, of wanting some small treat and instead getting gamed, is one that viewers are over, too.
Viewers are just as upset
“We have to stop supporting these places,” said Nesha B. “Report it to Chick-fil-A corporate. That’s most likely the franchisee nickel & diming,” said a thoughtful commentator.
While another summed it up from the consumer point of view. They wrote, “These multimillionaire companies are out of their mind with greed.”
What is shrinkflation?
It’s not a new phenomenon. However, it is perhaps more clearly visible in these latter days of capitalism. Shrinkflation is the innovative practice of reducing the size of a product while maintaining the same sticker price. Investopedia notes, “Raising the price per given amount is a strategy employed by companies, to stealthily boost profit margins or maintain them in the face of rising input costs.”
The CBS website recently posted an article. It noted, “About one-third of roughly 100 common consumer products have shrunk in size or serving since the pandemic.”
Furthermore, digging on Reddit produced a post from 2 years ago where another parfait lover has noticed a very similar fruit-to-yogurt ratio. That post, too, decried the ridiculousness of the fruit-to-yogurt ratio.
But a small bit of good news? One commenter with seeming insider knowledge of the brand’s recipes posted, “The yogurt used is Wallaby brand Q,” for those who want to make it at home. Though that really defeats the purpose. For a busy nurse who works 12-hours days, sometimes it is more worth it to pay a little more. Nonetheless, a $15.15 bill for a pittance of food is pretty insulting–especially when there’s an advertised abundance.
Above all, perhaps the final indignity that JP endured with her Chick-fil-A experience was an extra 10 cents tacked onto the bill. It was itemized in the receipt as “carryout bag charge.” As JP noted, “It’s not an option.”
@jmartinneque This terrible and they know they are wrong ! ? #chickfila ♬ original sound – JP
The Mary Sue has reached out to JP and Chick-fil-A for comment.
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