Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Seares: Shrinking pan de sal, lechon By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) keeps track of pan de sal weight. That’s how we know bakers will reduce basic bread by 12.5 percent, from 40 grams to 35 grams.
Bashing the shrinking is trite and wasteful play. Opposition uses it to condemn those in power. Pro-administration uses it for flaunting compassion. Consumers don’t benefit at all.
Sellers prefer reducing bread to bloating price. Price stays but weight falls: buyers’ psychology evolving into marketing doctrine.
Bread buyers only sense they are getting less. They don’t actually know, not until do-gooding politicos whine.
Besides, DTI doesn’t control pan de sal price. DTI leaves market forces alone. It just tells the public how much the bread must weigh.
No monitoring
“Inasal,” or pork lechon, is something else. DTI doesn’t monitor weight of inasal.
City Halls look out for rigged scales. But in Talisay City, which markets lechon in grand festivals, vendors don’t weigh the stuff. Sellers have perfected “mata-mata” (appraisal by eye) to a fine art that assures profit if not accuracy.
How does a buyer know he’s getting value for money, compared to pricing at the other end of Fred Sipalay coastal road?
He doesn’t, unless he totes a weighing scale — and risks being run out of town by screaming vendors.
No one can do anything about shrunken pan de sal or inasal. Buy it, as is, or don’t.
