Random Groupings of Words

In business there always seems to come a time when a company has to decide to raise the rate or cost of their product or service. Much of the time this is due to inflation or rising costs. It’s a stupid principle, and inflation in general is a garbage concept. It’s a method by which one or two industries makes everyone in multiple countries have to adjust their pricing strategies needlessly. (However, I am cool with the increased granularity of currency in general, but I would prefer if there were a way to accomplish that without inflation.)

However, accepting that this is a consequence of current monetary based capitalist systems, I really wish that companies who have to do this would enact the “Make the Burrito Bigger” principle. This is an extremely simple principle, so simple in fact that I can’t believe I’m actually writing a post about it, but I actually kinda hope that it makes it into common vernacular or textbooks one day, hence the post/clarification. That way when it happens, it can be attributed to me. :)

Since the 1990s, it has been popular in the southern United States (and probably other areas as well, I’m most familiar with the southern United States) for eateries to open that primarily serve big burritos. They are just tortillas stuffed with several ingredients and typically wrapped in a layer of tin foil for maximum portability. While still difficult to consume while driving, they are still a very convenient and mostly extremely delicious way to eat a meal.

When I first started eating big burritos in 1992, the price of a typical very large burrito was about $6. These were usually too large to eat by one person in one sitting, and thus they were given absurd names, like the “Super Monster” or the “Tastes Better on the Way Down” or whatever. Every one of the burrito places has increased their price over time. At one place, the biggest burrito is now over $13. And every size of burrito below that has also increased in price.

But you know what they did? They made the burrito a little bit bigger with each price increase. Costwise, it’s totally not a huge deal for the eatery, which sells burritos in such mass that the cost of in size increase is largely disproportional to the price increase. But at least my little pea brain has a justification for why they increased the price on me.

So the general idea is that if you’re going to increase the price due to inflation or whatever, it would be nice if you increased the value of the product, even ever so slightly so as to justify the increase in a manner other than “just to be dicks”. This can apply to service-based industries and everything in between. Our programming company increased in experience and made some of our processes more efficient (at least that’s what we claim) before increasing our price.

Once company who hasn’t done this recently is Coca Cola. Their 20 oz bottle product has increased in price from $.75 to nearly $2 since its introduction with no concern or apology. Had they even increased it to 22 oz, it seems like I could justify it in my head. This isn’t any sort of anti-Coca Cola blog post, I’m just using them as an example.

So this is what I’m referring to if I ever bring up the “Make the Burrito Bigger” principle. Kinda makes sense… doesn’t it?