Bag of potato chips
Bags of potato chips are often far bigger than they need to be for the product they contain.
  • Slack-fill describes the empty space in a packet, such as the air in a bag of potato chips.
  • Slack-fill can be deemed illegal if it's not functional.
  • Halo Top, Mondelez, and Whole Foods have all been unsuccessfully sued over slack-filling.

Ever opened a bag of potato chips, only to find that it's half full of air?

There's a name for that empty part of the packaging: slack-fill. You can find it in products from packs of cookies and noodles to bottles of laundry detergent and even makeup, and consumer advocates say in some cases be used to sneakily deceive shoppers.