Monday, January 23, Tim Hortons will be rolling out a new extra-large coffee size across the country after a trial period with the bigger size in Kingston and Sudbury, Ontario.
At 24 ounces of coffee, or 710 millilitres, the cup will be bigger than a standard-sized individual plastic bottle of pop and outweigh Starbucks’ largest size for hot drinks, venti (20 ounces).
While prices for its pre-existing coffee portions remain the same, Tim Hortons is shifting the names of its sizes upwards, requiring some adjustment for customers accustomed to getting just 20 ounces when they request the extra-large.
Remember, unless you wish an extra, unaccustomed jolt of caffeine, next Monday the “large” size will nab you the former “extra large,” the petite, 236 millilitre cup that used to be a “small” is now the “extra small,” and so on.
(Our graphics department has helpfully broken down the new sizes and names above, for those not used to so much pre-coffee thinking).
“Our guests also told us that they love our small eight-ounce cup, so we will continue to offer that size,” said Dave McKay, Director of Brand Marketing for Beverages, Tim Hortons.
During the test period for the new sizes, Timmies called the move a response to changing consumer tastes. Customers have had a growing bigger-is-better appetite in recent years.
“It just made sense for us that the extra-large, which people have gotten used to at our place, remain the largest size there is,” says David Morelli, director of public affairs. “The amount of coffee you get for the price you pay doesn’t change; just the name.”
According to university researchers, the “vanity re-sizing” will allow our increased consumption to come with a clear conscience.
“It’s much more likely that people will base their decision-making on the short labels than on the actual content of the coffee cups,” says Alfonso Abizaid, an obesity researcher and associate professor of neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“In the past, extra-large labels were considered favourable because people would feel as though they were getting more for their money. But now, at least in regard to certain food and drink items, small labels are used to allow people to consume more without feeling as guilty.”
But according to an expert on food culture, recognition of the new system doesn’t necessarily mean changing our coffee rituals to match.
“People will stick with their familiar ways of ordering and get accidentally seduced into drinking larger, more expensive portions,” says Heather Evans, an adjunct professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “It’s a form of mass behavioural training.”
Evans says these sorts of revisions are more commonplace in quick-service restaurants because the experience, by definition, moves at a faster pace. This leaves consumers to make choices by rote rather than reason.
“They’re assuming people will work from their routines, ordering the same thing they’ve always ordered,” says Evans. “There isn’t a lot of time to ponder, ‘Now, what size should I be ordering?’ or to even debate it. When someone hands you a medium — that used to be a large — you’re not going to stand there and haggle over it.”
Koert van Ittersum, a noted expert on the behavioural biases that lead to overconsumption, describes the re-labelling as an extension of a practice that’s been going on in the hospitality industry for decades.
“We don’t know anymore what a normal potion size is,” says van Ittersum, associate professor of marketing at Georgia Tech. “Also, people don’t want to feel like they’re getting less — which is how they’d feel ordering a smaller cup. We’re wired that way.”