Tropicana reignited a 15-year feud with customers over its packaging design, slimming down bottles

Tropicana fans are ditching the brand after a bottle redesign. · Fortune · Courtesy of Tropicana

Tropicana is about to learn if the juice is worth the squeeze. Customers are revolting after the orange juice juggernaut redesigned the shape of its bottles this summer, slimming them from 52 to 46 ounces. The backlash on social media and threats to no longer buy the product are reminiscent of a disastrous 2009 rebrand that sent sales plummeting, forcing Tropicana to revert to its original design.

This time around, orange juice drinkers are wary of shrinkflation, or product sizes reducing while prices stay the same. Indeed, while Tropicana has set the price of its new bottles at $3.99, about 70 cents cheaper than its old design, the slim bottles are still more expensive per ounce than the older ones in some retailers. At Walmart, the new 46-ounce bottles cost 7.7 cents per ounce, while the 52-ounce bottles retail for 7.6 cents per ounce. Consumers have taken notice of the alleged shrinkflation.

“Done with Tropicana. Classic Shrinkflation,” one BlueSky user said. “Last time it comes into this house. Time to stand up and let these big corporations know that we actually DO count. Sickens me.”

Tropicana responds to shrinkflation allegations

Shrinkflation has been a growing concern for consumers since 2022, when brands tried to hide the impact of inflation by strategically reducing package sizes instead of hiking up prices. Snack brands—even favorite cereals—have been the worst alleged perpetrators of shrinkflation, with Doritos bags shrinking from 9.75 ounces to 9.25 ounces, and “family-size” boxes of General Mills’ Cocoa Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch contracting from 19.3 ounces to 18.1 ounces over the course of a few months in 2022.

But it’s not the social-media ire that should concern Tropicana, but rather the threat of sales being washed down the drain. After all, the last redesign that soured customers resulted in a nearly 20% sales loss in just a few months.

Tropicana, which PepsiCo sold in 2021 to private equity firm PAI Partners, is now owned by joint venture Tropicana Brands Group, meaning its sales data are not publicly available; but according to consumer research firm Circana, Tropicana sales plummeted immediately after the switch, dropping 10.9% in August, and 19% by October, CNN reported.

“Consumers voting with their wallets is the most powerful and underrated form of protesting. Incredible,” one user commented on Reddit.

Tropicana Brands Group told Fortune that according to third-party data, sales are returning to normal levels, though it acknowledged it takes time for consumers to adapt to packaging changes. The company made the change—informed by customer feedback—to make the bottle easier to pour and store, as well as to produce a more sustainable cap using less plastic.