Seems I was a bit behind the times on the whole Downsizing ice cream trend.

John Gifford, who with his brother owns Gifford's Dairy Inc. of Skowhegan, Maine, says what his bigger national competitors are doing is deceptive. He said Gifford's Famous Ice Cream won't be downsizing to the 56-ounce containers, which he said the packaging industry has dubbed "cheater cups" because they're designed to fool consumers.

Edgar Dworsky, editor of Consumerworld.org, said it's one thing for companies to tinker with odd-sized products, but he thinks it's unfair to downsize what has become a standard-size package. ''When a half-gallon becomes 56 ounces, what's next?" he asked. ''A carton of eggs with only 11 eggs? Or does a pound all of a sudden become 14 ounces?"

Tim Hopkins, vice president and general manager of the retail division at Friendly's in Wilbraham, said the company was faced with a choice: either raise its price or use cheaper ingredients. Hopkins said the company decided to maintain quality and join Edy's in raising the price by cutting the size of the container.

This is crap. They didn't raise the price of the retail unit, they cheated consumers by holding the price & repackaging less product into a deceiving container, designed with two of its three dimensions identical to pre-decontenting.

Asked if the new package was designed to make consumers think there had been no change, he said: ''It's not intentionally misleading."

More Bullshit. The packaging change was done so that the new container looks like the same old container.

Heck, Friendly's webiste still brags about "Instant Variety in each sundae half gallon!"