The sample tray

Original fiction extract.

The pieces of dried mango dwindled as shoppers stopped at the sample tray. I cut more whenever the stallholder nodded, trying to make them roughly equal. By the last hour, only one uncut strip remained. A small child asked whether the samples were the whole product or whether we sold larger pieces too. I showed her the packets. She chose one for her grandmother and refused another sample, saying that somebody else had not tried it yet. The final strip lasted longer than I expected.

Identify a word or phrase from the extract which suggests the same idea as the words in bold:

As people tasted the mango, the number of pieces became fewer.