But they don't supply an apple Danish maker.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Food portion cuts to increase profits?
- Thread starter Mark48
- Start date
disneygeek90
Well-Known Member
Easy bake ovens with apple danish mix coming to all resort rooms confirmed.
Last edited:
corran horn
Well-Known Member
amennew??
EeyoreFan#24
Well-Known Member
Good point, I agree tone and delivery say just as much as the words. I have learned to go seek the call recordings from YouTube or one of the investment news sites when I read something “interesting” in a transcript.
HM Spectre
Well-Known Member
Food companies do this because their customers are very price sensitive so they cut portion size to keep prices relatively static.
Disney is doing this because their customers are very price INsensitive and they want to see how far they can push them before they change their habits.
After all, figuring out how bad of a meal your customer is willing to pay top dollar for is exactly what good restauranteurs do, right? /s
They've been cutting quality while constantly raising prices for a while now, they've just never been this blatant before. And again... it's not going to stop here.
Even if you think portion sizes and food quality were too high to begin with, you should still be pushing back against moves like this because soon, they'll come for something you DO care about.
Someone in her position should know by now no matter how she may have meant it, the optics when reporting on it would not be good. Her rank/experience - she should know better.
It was an off the cuff remark that she should not have made.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
It actually wouldn’t be good for all of us if portions were smaller. Not everyone is trying to lose weight. Someone in a position of power needs to be more thoughtful in how she speaks. If she has a toxic relationship with food, she should choose to eat less. But, her experience is not everyone’s experience, and a company changing Splash Mountain for the reasons given should understand that. If you are CFO, focus on financials. “Food prices are sky-rocketing everywhere, and we are not immune to this, so we will be forced to either raise prices or, where appropriate, reduce portion sizes. The decision will be specific to the food item. We can’t make a Mickey pretzel smaller since people expect that item to look a certain way, so the price will need to rise. On the other hand, we can look to switch our French fry vendor or reduce portion size and include affordable, more healthful side options to interested guests. In all cases, we will maintain the Disney standard that our guests rightfully expect and we hope our guests will understand these necessary changes that are not unlike decisions they are now facing when they visit the grocery store.” Blame economics, not your guests.
Everytime there is inflation food sizes get smaller. Look at a bags of potato chips or the size of candy bars or even the size of a breakfast sandwich or regular burger at a fast food establishment, they are all smaller. Also look at colleges and universities. They still requires about 123 credits for graduation but what used to be about 41 classes is now just over 30. How can that be? It's cost savings rather than just raing prices and that is inflation charging more for lesa. Universal is doing it too. Read their site, someone just posted they raised their prices for a discounted room by $80.00 a night.
corran horn
Well-Known Member
Agreed, people at that level only exist to schmooze and be a public face of senior leadership.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Did you listen to the call, or just read the transcript? She didn't do what you say she did.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
Did the literal words come out of her mouth or was she mis-quoted? If she said the words, she said the words.
I teach. If I say something extremely inappropriate, it doesn’t matter what my tone or delivery was. I’ll be in trouble. The words that come out of our mouths matter and I’m allowed to be offended.
I watched the call. I can understand it was an off-the-cuff remark. We don’t speak off-the-cuff when being recorded. Any teacher who worked during the pandemic knew this or learned this quickly.
el_super
Well-Known Member
That's how I heard it while listening to the call. It was, what Iger often referred to on these calls as "some color." It did come off as a joke, but I also see how there is enough ambiguity there to have it come across as something other than a joke. Sometimes jokes just don't land the way you think they will and McCarthy in this case isn't really guilty of anything other than telling a bad joke.
They're not paid to be comedians though.
I disagree. I think Disney guests are actually quite sensitive to price increases, and moreso, the answer that McCarthy gave actually betrays their belief in such.
In context the question was asked regarding inflation, which is now at a record high. Prices are going up everywhere and that will absolutely impact Disney. McCarthy's answer indicated (to me at least) that Disney is unwilling to just unilaterally raise prices to offset their own losses. That they would examine other options such as cutting portion sizes and swapping vendors in order to maintain their current pricing (which let's be honest, is probably maxed out anyway).
Disney's business is historically very sensitive to inflation and especially rising gas/travel costs. If they start to see a decrease in their business due to inflation, rising prices is the last thing they will want to do.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
Charge more and provide less. This is right out of the Disneyparks playbook.
Is anyone at all surprised?
They are not even trying to hide it.
hopemax
Well-Known Member
I wasn’t listening but just reading the posts it sounded like she was just trying to make a joke about American eating habits that normally *everyone* makes. She wasn’t being intentionally derogatory, more self-deprecating. If she hadn’t said the last bit, or even still now, some people would be making the case that customers shouldn’t be upset about this cutback with the justification spin that American portions are too big.
I just think all of the recent earnings calls, some of which I have listened to, sounds like people who aren’t aware that there are customers listening. You know the whole don’t say things about someone in public that you wouldn’t say to their face. Some things you aren’t supposed to say out loud. While these calls are meant for business, Disney knows they have above the average of customers who own little bits of stock, bloggers who report everything and some of those people listen in more than for a widget company. And since they’re an entertainment company, we are used to their business stuff coming with a little more polish than this. Jokes about PT Barnum aside, he did understand the point of putting on a good show to willingly separate people from their money. Disney seems to think an underwhelming show will work just as well. And there are times you can skip the show entirely.
I just think all of the recent earnings calls, some of which I have listened to, sounds like people who aren’t aware that there are customers listening. You know the whole don’t say things about someone in public that you wouldn’t say to their face. Some things you aren’t supposed to say out loud. While these calls are meant for business, Disney knows they have above the average of customers who own little bits of stock, bloggers who report everything and some of those people listen in more than for a widget company. And since they’re an entertainment company, we are used to their business stuff coming with a little more polish than this. Jokes about PT Barnum aside, he did understand the point of putting on a good show to willingly separate people from their money. Disney seems to think an underwhelming show will work just as well. And there are times you can skip the show entirely.
el_super
Well-Known Member
That was their fairly earned, negotiated salary. How would you feel if your boss came to you and asked you to take a pay cut because times were tough? How would you feel if your boss asked you to take a pay cut so your company could buy gifts for their clients?
Yeah but this goes both ways. If customers want to listen in on the calls, and try to glean some nugget of information, they should know the audience these calls are meant for, and have some basic understanding of what they are for.
People often try to remind the fans that Disney is a business, but judging from some of the comments here, that isn't really something the fans are ready to understand. Everyone who has an interest in Disney, whether it's executives (thru compensation), Investors (thru dividends), Cast Members (thru wages), or customers (thru services) has a say in where the money needs to go, and if you're not ready to have a conversation with the investors seeking to have more of the money flow their way, then do yourself a favor and skip listening to the investor calls.
corran horn
Well-Known Member
pssssssst, this literally happened all over the job spectrum for the past almost 2 years. 401K matches were halted. Raises were postponed. Salaries and hours were indeed cut. And this impacted people making a hell of a lot less than $1M, much less 10x more.
hopemax
Well-Known Member
Customers have the right to do their due diligence to avoid making a bad investment aka consumer decision as any investor. If a company is going to be so blatant about how they view their customers and how they manipulate their product in a public format than they should expect whatever fallout comes. It still in the company’s best interest to not say the quiet parts out loud. A customer has no obligation to forget they are the customer when they hear something that is intended for another audience. Customers have a right to fight for their best interests at all times too.