> The steelman is that by lowering the cost, more pets can afford better food than what they currently eat. No comment about whether that is reflected in the consumer facing price or in profits.

For your steelman to be relevant it would have to be reflected by lowering the price, otherwise they're just making the product worse for no customer benefit whatsoever and hoping customers take a long time to notice.

And if they were trying to offer a different value proposition by reducing the quality in order to lower the price, the honest way to do it would be to introduce a new product with a different name rather than changing what the product is while leaving the name the same.