There are 5 fewer Doritos per bag now thanks to inflation

(Image credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

published 11 March 2022

If your bag of Doritos has seemed suspiciously skimpy on chips lately, you're not alone. Frito-Lay confirmed that it decreased the number of chips you get per bag by five whole delicious triangles in 2021 in order to account for inflation, Quartz reports.

"Inflation is hitting everyone … we took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips," a representative of the company explained.

A difference of five chips (or a 9.25 oz. bag versus 9.75 oz. bag) might not seem like much if you're not the one with the shorted bag, but "cutting half an ounce from a bag while leaving its price unchanged correlates roughly to a 21 cents-per-bag saving," Time reported in 2014 with regards to Frito-Lay's flavored chips. For 200 million bags of chips, that means "the total amount saved is … upwards of $50 million," Time explained.

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Doritos aren't the only product that's gotten smaller while charging you the same price. You'll also get one fewer brushes out of a tube of Crest 3D White Radiant Mint, 28 fewer crackers out of a box of family size original Wheat Thins, and several fewer sips out of your bottle of Gatorade as companies try to pass higher supply prices onto consumers with sneaky downsizing and repackaging. Read more about what products have gotten smaller under your nose at Quartz.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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