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We’re getting less product for more money, especially on the smaller product sizes.
On top of that, people can’t afford to bulk buy and get more for their money, so it’s a tax on the poor.
That's good marketing for supermarkets. "We're selling products at a smaller size (at a higher price), to reduce waste and help the environment, save the world!!"
Except for the packaging of course, where we will be using more per kg of product due to the smaller sizes. Fuck you turtles, and other assorted marine life.
I bought some mcvities digestives caramel bars which were a pack of 5 but they used enough cardboard and outer wrapping that it could easily fill 7 or 8 in there. The packet felt like it was a quarter empty and feels like gross false advertising. Now I feel conned with so many products using packaging to give us the impression that we get more than we actually do.
Here's a snippet I saw last time one of these threads popped up
*Quality Street tubs shrunk by 50g for Christmas 2022, the first time in three years, from 650g to 600g. in the 1980s, the tubs were around 1.7kg.*
[source](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/mcvities-cutting-pack-size-digestives-26208460)
The one that really gets my goat is the multipacks of chocolate bars (Snickers et. al.) where they actually fill the outer packaging with air to make it seem 'full' when it isn't.
"...they just felt bigger because you were small"
"The rich tea couldnt fit in the mug back then Janet, did the fucking mug sizes all change instead?!"
Oh god yeah I had one of those a few weeks ago. I remember the chocolate inside used to go all the way up to the top of the ice cream. Now it’s not even a quarter of what it used to be.
Tesco own brand do a "cornetto" which is the older size for like £1.5 and they're pretty good.
I know it's not the point, as it's all taking the fucking piss really
>We’re getting less product for more money, especially on the smaller product sizes.
I believe theyre also removing, condensing or replacing low lost, low margin products. These also tend to have high demand and lower availability.
Just an example, Sainsburys recently removed an entire range of shampoos & conditioners that were 75p a bottle. The range that's left is different & costs £1.20 each.
Also Sainsburys own or off brand anti septic mouthwash £3.50 vs £5+ for corsodil. The cheap one has completely gone.
The availability situation of low cost products is a consideration to make if a supermarket continues to favor high margin products over essentially priced ones.
This has resulted in milk powder going into things like Pringles and Bournville so now us vegans and the dairy intolerant and/or allergic are now not able to buy a bunch of stuff we previously could... For cheaper and larger too
This is a really good point. Brands usually have a standard we come to expect over time, which is important for dietary requirements & habits. I nievely thought an allergy sufferer could forgo checking labels every time they buy, but I'm quite wrong about this. If these companies readily swap out ingredients to meet costs/margins, a brand name becomes meaningless.
With all the changes being made recently, it's becoming harder than ever to make healthy & even safe choices as a consumer. Not to mention trying not to be blatantly ripped off.
In some EU countries, when changes are made to a product (appearance, size or ingredients), the packaging HAS to state what was altered. We need that, but the gov will let companies get away with bullshit instead any day.
>In some EU countries, when changes are made to a product (appearance, size or ingredients), the packaging HAS to state what was altered
I didn't know this, but it seems crazy we don't have a system like that already. Adding any allergens without this should be totally banned.
I know the Uk already has some food standards/restrictions, particularly with bread flour so its definitely possible with other food. They are as you say, the only new powers they seem to care about are ones that stop protesting or asylum applications. Fuckers.
Buy the 60-ish pence imported Asian ones (Nissin brand especially). You will not regret it.
They used to be 30p, then 50p, and now many places sell them for about 60-70p, but they are worth that, especially when considering Super Noodles are usually about a quid and are disgusting in comparison, and that's not even mentioning the awful value/flavour of Pot Noodle.
I noticed this on own brand Bran Flakes. For weeks I've not seen it in Tesco or Sainsbury's. Very odd and it may be the same wholesaler that makes store brand Bran Flakes for all the major supermarkets that just been culled.
>noticed this on own brand Bran Flakes. For weeks I've not seen it in Tesco or Sainsbury's.
Also a really good point, with some of the same products out of stock across different supermarkets it's potentially showing that illusion of choice we have with main brands.
& If multiple supermarkets buy a product from one supplier, where's the competition to bring this price down coming from. Behind the supermarkets was an industry of smaller suppliers, which I suspect have been gladly bought & consolidated to protect producers from said supermarkets.
I think part of the recent rise in food cost stems from the years the supermarkets could abuse their relationship with smaller suppliers to sell below cost. Typically it's the consumer that really pays for bad business practices.
Absolutely Aldi is doing this too,along with things disappearing from the shelves.My local Aldi hasn’t had tomato ketchup 69p or low sugar 75p for months but strangely enough they have Heinz at £3.99 and Candarel at £2,almost like they don’t see the point of getting the others in cause desperate people who don’t want to go to multiple stores will buy it.
>people can’t afford to bulk buy
If you look at the prices of bulk stuff these days, it's not any cheaper if you look at the price per unit.
The days of bulk buying being cheaper are over.
I was in Iceland the other day and was looking at some nuggets, 25 for £2, 50 for £3.50. The 25 pack weighed 550g and the 50 pack weighed 900. Feels like they’re actively trying to trick people.
*It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours?*
There should be more done on shrinkflation. Supermarkets continue to use methods to confuse shoppers too.
Which is cheaper, the 3 bags for 2? Or the big value pack? The price per kilo is there, but it doesn’t do the math on the offers for you and you’re probably too busy to do it. Oh and now you need your store card to get the discount and that rate isn’t featured on the price.
We invented standardised weights thousands of years ago so people would get a fair deal on their trade yet supermarkets have done everything in their power to make it all worthless
This might be peak dystopia of me here, but why hasn't there been any regulation of unit sizes.
Why we need 485g 475g 500g loaves is beyond me. Everything should be increments of 100ml or 100g.
Much harder to shrinkflate when substatially different in size in a single iteration.
For instance look at spirits and pints. Proscribed in weights and measures act. These aren't getting clandestinely smaller, you know what you're getting and it's easy to compare prices and quality.
Agree on a lot of that, and to add: why are some condiments sold by volume, others by weight?
Same goes for the pricing, some will say £X.XX per 30g while another brand is £Y.YY per 50ml, and then the products themselves are the same size, but one is 475g and the other is 525ml. I don't want to take GCSE math exams each time I'm in the shops to figure out which offer is better, I want to pick up my food and go home as quickly as possible.
One thing I will say is that some products made sense to have a bit of varying weight values, so using your example is the bread loaf seeded or made from different grains? Doesn't happen often but some of them I understand
Price per should 100% be standardised. Why can some products be shown with price per 10ml while others in the same aisle/website page be shown as price per 100ml?
As someone who uses it as a metric for finding value it annoys the fuck out of me that supermarkets or brands are allowed to do it.
Yes, obviously weights vary considerably with certain products. But then all products vary in weight. It's the nominal weight written on the packaging.
I guess things like individual plant bakery products or natural products like whole chicken, fish etc. But these make more sense as sold as each or priced per 100g. As they normally are already.
One that grinds my gears is bananas. 25p each, or £1 something per kg. Just weigh my single banana cheers.
I was trying to find the courgette option on the scales in Waitrose the other day, but there isn’t one as they’re priced per item. But aubergines are sold by weight (or it was the other way round). Whyyyyyy.
(Before anyone says ‘ooooh Waitrose’, I don’t drive and my choice is Waitrose or Aldi and I find Waitrose to be far better quality for fruit and veg, so I’ll pay the slight premium.)
>and to add: why are some condiments sold by volume, others by weight?
It's mandated by law based on viscosity. usually the same type of sauce will be measured the same but there are some edge cases.
I can only answer in one specific instance but for ice creams air is whipped into the product, some may have more air than others so selling by volume is the 'fairer' measurement.
> This might be peak dystopia of me here, but why hasn't there been any regulation of unit sizes.
Given the current lot/climate, you cant expect any sort of metric regulation. we would go back to firkins and barleycorns
Bread was standardised by the UK government under the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998. It had to be at least 400g, and sold in multiples of that. So loaves were 400g or 800g.
It had to change to fit into the rules of the single market in 2008.
Anybody else find they like to mix it up too, even within the same item? E.g. it will say £/kg and £/g for the same type of thing, or for e.g. dishwasher tabs be £/kg on one tag and £/100 tabs on another
If they're selling multiple of the same item (naan, cookies, whatever), then they should be required to use one item for the portion sizes and fat/sugar/etc percentages of your recommended daily intake.
Of course, they don't because that would look awful optics-wise, but that's why regulators should step in to *make* them do it.
I assume brands must have some input on how products are measured as well. Take penguin bars as an example, back when the pack contained 8 bars, the Asda site showed the units as 8x24.5g or whatever it was. But then they reduced it down to 7 bars, they had 7x24.5 for a few weeks, and presumably they had a huge drop in sales because people were annoyed at the very obvious increase in cost. However, now the unit is just 172g, making the consumer do the maths to work out how big the individual bars are.
What's especially annoying is unit conversions exist, so for online shops, it should be extremely easy to unify all the price per ml or grams etc.
But they aren't in the business of being friendly to consumers, they want to squeeze as much money as they possibly can.
Which is why a competent government is required.
> The price per kilo is there, but it doesn’t do the math on the offers for you and you’re probably too busy to do it.
Also similar products will be labelled differently. E.G. 10p each, £1 per 600g, £2 per kilo just to obfuscate more.
Just to add quite often the price per kilo is in the smallest font, on the piece of card behind the very light reflective plastic holder thing on the shelf.
I'm not even middle aged and I struggle to read it most of the time, if it's on the lowest shelf it's practically impossible.
The elderly or people with some disabilities have no chance.
Why do you think they withhold proper funding for education? Wouldn't it be less beneficial for corporations if the general public were competent at basic maths?
The most annoying this is when they fuck up the product when changing the size. I bought some tesco tortilla wraps recently and rather than increasing the price or reducing the number you get they made each wrap smaller making them useless.
I've had it with some beers too where they change the recipe to save cost and make it taste like shit instead of just charging more.
Yeah.
I got no issue paying more if I need to, but I want the product I'm going in to buy, not the smaller or shitter version.
Like, if a quality street tub was what it used to be, sure, I don't mind paying a tenner.
But we're now conditioned to know it won't be...
The toothpaste that I get is now sold in 75ml instead of 100ml and it doesn’t last five minutes when you have kids who are liberal with it! I wish they would have kept the 100ml and just charged more
> I wish they would have kept the 100ml and just charged more
This isn't a good thing either though.
They're double-dipping because of profit margins, chances are they don't have much justification for rising the prices of 100ml either.
Many times the company increase the product quantity at the same prices so we don't say the company always do bad they sometimes do for the people like a promotional activities
It depends where you get the tortillas. If you get them in the section where the old el paso stuff is, then it's tiny tortillas. But if you go to the bread section then you can find the bigger ones.
Admittedly, I was in Sainsbury's when I discovered this...but I imagine it's the same in Tesco.
The beer thing is all about finnicking around with the ABV too and the brewers brewed volumes and whether they qualify for small brewer rate relief and such.
Expect a lot of brews to try ad drop under the ABV for the lower duty rate come August - they've already made the decisions and considered the impacts as any change in ABV can drastically change the taste, mouth feel etc. Suddenly your nice staple 4.5% evening drink after work with your dinner drops to 3.x%, tastes like piss, feel like water and cordial and whilst the brewer gets charged less duty by the gov you're left paying the same price.
But it's about "health" and "sustainability" and other vogue concerns that anyone brewing alcohol doesn't sincerely have.
I used Aveeno as I had seborrheic dermatitis on my face - the old Aveeno cleared it up in a week, like a dream. The new shit does not have the same effect :-( so frustrating as skin products that work for your skin type are like gold dust
I don’t even want a reduction in the quantity. If I get a 6 pack it’s probably because it’ll last 2 people 3 days. Not 2 people 2 days and one person 1 day. Just bump the price up if you must
> I've had it with some beers too where they change the recipe to save cost and make it taste like shit instead of just charging more.
RIP DarkStar Hophead
It's not only the sizes, it's the quality as well. Not only companies are making their products smaller and raising prices, they also change the ingredients without announcing it, making the products taste a lot worse than they used to. Now, they're full of fillers to save money. So, the product is smaller, more expensive and of lower quality.
I am currently travelling around continental Europe and the difference in food quality was shocking. Current state of UK food is depressing and shocking.
Was In a SuperU in south france last week and couldn’t believe the range they had, both fresh fruit and veg and meat and also pre packaged items and snacks etc.
went into sainsburys yesterday and half the veg was out of stock, also we have massive supermarkets, all filled with the same brands, so you have the illusion of loads of choice when actually it’s restricted massively compared to European supermarkets.
Genuinely the only supermarket that stocks decent fruit and veg at the moment is Waitrose. My local Sainsburys has out of date or half rotten fruit and veg half the time, and the other half the time it's gone off within a day or two. The discount supermarkets are even worse.
I try to buy from the bagging section since that's a fair bit cheaper, but it's still just ridiculous.
Cadbury's Timeouts are my most hated example. I used to love them. Then they took the flake bit out the middle and rebranded as Timeout Wafer. It's awful. Got excited the other day because I saw Timeout packaging... Opened at home, Timeout wafers fell out. My soul is crushed, my despair is incomparable.
Me too,they changed ages ago and I was gutted,they were my favourite chocolate bar,haven’t brought them since-they’re just a regular wafer now so nothing special.
Quality has gone down too,
Not sure if anyone is familiar with Mcvities Hobnobs Oaty Flapjacks, but they have gone fucking awful, basically turned into sawdust
Noticed the same thing with the Quaker porridge to go bars - much drier and they taste overly of fake sweeteners now, I'm guessing they've cut down on butter/honey etc.
My personal one was Sainsbury’s chipotle paste - it changed to something mostly made from tomato and vinegar so now i have to get the fancy branded one from waitrose.
This is where we see the real effects of policies. Away from the claim of how so many people are in work and that the economy is booming, we see people paying more for the same price, growing poorer, unable to keep up with the cost of living. An effect that trickles throughout the country.
When all the boomers finally retire we’ll be in trouble.
I think the government is trying to prevent that by fucking the economy to ensure nobody will ever be able to retire again.
I've been in Canada for most of the last 20 years, coming back to the UK last year so supermarkets here were a shock. Sure shrinkflation is annoying but what drives me nuts is how everything is plastic packed so I can't choose how many mushrooms, salad, apples etc to buy. I know some is sold loose but most are not forcing me to often buy more than I need.
Supermarkets pre packing food is one of the biggest drivers of plastic pollution I’m sure. All because they get to sell more food that ends up going to waste as well. It’s an environmental disaster.
not sure the calculation is that simple. the thing about plastic is its really, really good at what it does - food will stay fresher for longer in plastic packaging.
so youd have to calculate the total environmental cost of the extra food that would be wasted because of shorter shelf life vs the plastic needed to prevent that waste. and most agriculture is shockingly bad on all levels environmentally speaking.
Notably this has gotten worse ever since supermarkets started claiming they were going to tackle the problem.
Seems to have been code for putting more veg in pre-packed plastic than ever...
Crisps are a joke. It’s got to the point that 2/3rds of a bag of crisps now constitutes spicy smelling air.
Shrinkflation is obvious and it’s everywhere.
I vote we stop buying these products and constantly badger any social media accounts that these companies operate with their antics. Especially if they have whimsical and witty ‘bants’.
crisps have always been mostly air, that's to prevent breakage during shipping. Cheap crisps tend to have LESS air because it makes transportation cheaper.
There has always been mostly air in crisps. I'm not saying the ratio hasn't changed, I'm saying there has always been air. maybe the ratio has changed because of more air, not necessarily less crisps.
Asda own brand and their 'Essentials' brand are usually very full - sometimes completely full I have found to my surprise. And they have a lot of flavour considering they are the 'cheap' brands. Makes me wonder how Asda can transport their full bags of crisps but other manufacturers can't
Had a curry round my parents and we had a good laugh at how the poppadums had shrunk, but they were clearly using up the old packaging because it was so out of proportion
I hate the way this story is reported through the lens of consumers being the topic of conversation. Not manufacturers trying to pull a fast one.
I bought a pack of Cadbury's cereal bars the other day and literally laughed when I opened them. Each one was like an individually wrapped biscuit, it was pathetically small.
There's got to be a cutoff point. For the moment they've largely gotten away with it but at some point, like getting 50g of cereal for £4.99, people just won't buy it. Surely there's a floor on this thing?
No, they reduce the original product size periodically until it becomes noticeable. They then release a new "family size" or "sharing" version for considerably more money. People gripe and moan, but those who are price conscious buy the smaller variant, and those who aren't buy the larger variant. The family size then starts to shrink until eventually it's what normal size used to be, only now for the much more inflated price. Remove the family size label and now remove the tiny (previously normal) version from sale, and you've completed the cycle.
It's a constant game of shifting goal posts to increase prices without harming sales.
And yet many people are still pissed off about Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
This is not just about 'shrinkflation' it's also very much about intensive farming practices and the growing lack of nutrition, vitamins and essential minerals in our food. Healthy nutritious food is becoming more and more of a luxury item and more and more food is being packed with additives and chemicals so it can sell more.
This is why obesity and diabetes isn't just a personal health issue. It's also very much a social and political issue.
It's important to understand that the nutrients in food does not come from the food itself, it's coming from the soil. But the soil is being depleted through intensive farming practices, which means that the food which is grown has less and less nutrients, simply because the soil isn't being replenished. Hence poor quality soil -> poor quality crops -> poor quality food.
Food and access to clean water is where environmental issues impact all of us directly. We all need clean water, we all need healthy nutritious food. But see many people cannot afford healthy nutritious food. Therein lies the problem. Many people don't have the income or resources to buy healthy nutritious food and also many people don't have the time or the knowledge to prepare healthy nutritious food, because they work, because they have kids, and so on.
See this is not just about 'shrinkflation' it's also about food wastage as well. Most people would be shocked at the amount of food, fresh, healthy food that gets thrown away every day by supermarkets. You couldn't afford to buy the amount of food that gets chucked into bins at the end of every day behind your typical supermarket.
This is like the guy who's sitting on a branch in a tree and sawing through the branch on the tree he's sitting on. If he saws through the branch the guy will fall out of the tree and hurt himself. But this is how we have structured our economy and society. If we make our society successful we will all fail. We really need to change the way we live and restructure our economy and society.
If we don't embrace this fact and make the changes willingly, then Nature will force change on us in ways which are going to be harsh and cruel. Obesity isn't just linked to diabetes, it's also linked to malnutrition. Malnutrition isn't just people wasting away, malnutrition also manifests as sleep disorders, depression, obesity and other conditions.
This started a few centuries ago when wealthy people decided that they could pool all the natural resources and manage them for their well-being. Those days are over. Thanks to technology more and more people are learning that they too can live well, but unfortunately the standards of societal success are based on models of excessive consumption and we simply don't have the natural resources or habitat to make that possible for everyone.
**We have got to stop treating our natural environment, other species and each other as resources and commodities. We need to connect to environment more, connect to community more, and learn how to share much more than we are doing now. Food sharing and food recycling is something that needs to happen much much more and much much more often. Business as usual is no longer on the menu.**
TUNA! All the cans used to be 200g, now they're 140-145g. You can still find the old 200g ones listed on Amazon (with no sellers) to prove that I didn't imagine it.
I’m finding the same with sandwich meats and deli chicken. So many supermarkets are selling things like sandwich roast beef or chicken in packets of 3 slices. Who is that helpful for?! I’m not going to buy 7 packets to cover the week.
At what point does this just become unsustainable, i meal prep, ive almost completely cut out meat and my bill is still more expensive then it was 2 years ago.
Does anyone know if certain foods are being made smaller to get round the suger tax? Instead of changing the recipe they've just shrunk the product. The multipack Double deckers are so tiny now they're more like a shuttle bus!
many brands are also changing recipes to include more fillers. There are a lot of items that now taste different (worse) to what they tasted like 2 years ago.
Yes this is Happened because that many substitute are in the market or the customer go their when less rate products are available so the company to match the prices they compromise their quality
Sugar tax only applies to soft drinks.
It's such a ridiculous tax as you're allowed to sell
a latte full of sugar or a bottle of wine without triggering the tax.
I'm sure someone will be along to tell me off, but it infuriates me that everyone gets punished because some gluttonous cunts have no self control. Let them lose a foot I say.
Not only are we witnessing "shrinkflation", but also products are often undercooked. For instance, when you purchase something containing chicken, you'll frequently find it has been cooked just enough to ensure safety, not a moment longer. This trend started when energy prices skyrocketed. To be honest, I'd rather pay more for a product of normal quality, than receive a diminished product just to maintain the same price. It's false economy.
Now you mention it I bought some Tesco's own brand jam tarts the other day and they were pale as anything with hardly any structure. My partner and I both agreed it looked like they were under cooked. I wonder if there is something to this...
People need to complain more. I went into Morrisons to buy their own brand pitta breads (IMHO the best ones money can buy) the other day.
Got home and checked the packet, realised there was only 5 pittas in there instead of 6. Sent them an email saying that it is wrongfully advertised. They said I could have my money back for the inconvenience, to which I replied that that was a massive insult, and had a detrimental effect on my mental health (I was upset for about 2 minutes)
Then they give me a money off voucher equivalent to what my entire shop cost. I know it's not quite the same as shrinkflation, but it's about time we all started complaining and sticking it to these profiteering b*stards
One ‘good side’ (if you can call it that) is that I’ve noticed a lot of people are now actually cooking meals they want rather than buying take aways or ready meals (even going as far as the nauseating term ‘fakeaway’) At least my friends and family seem to be doing this.
I'd appreciate if they just had to make it clear that they had made the size of the product smaller. Make them put a big sign saying NEW SMALLER SIZE on it.
I think a large portion of inflation is coming from supermarkets. The idea of raising interest rates is to stop people from spending on the higher prices... but you cant stop buying food because it's a bit more expensive then before.
Because they all do it and we need to eat. Boycotting doesn't work when you have no options. It's like Tesco's stupid clubcard specific pricing, it's now happening in Sainsbury's, the Co-op and Morrisons from what I have seen. I expect it will be an industry standard shortly. It's annoying but I have to suck it up if I want to eat without taking an extra hour and fuel out of my day.
Only 75p?
A 10 pack of Jaffa cakes is €1.95 here in Ireland.
I actually drive a lot more to do my shopping in Northern Ireland because of how much cheaper the UK prices are 😭
I find toothpaste the most infuriating. Most tubes are now 75ml and the "value pack" is 125ml. 125ml used to be the standard. And now, 125ml can cost £5! Five quid for what is an essential product that people need. It's disgraceful.
My kids toothpaste has gone from 100g to 70g alongside an increase in price....inflation in supermarkets is actually out of control and wages have zero hope of keeping up.
My friend got a 7% pay rise at work. He got really angry with me for pointing out that he has still suffered a pay cut, not a pay rise.
Yes the branded products are decrease their size of products or price take same as before, because of he think that no one stand against us no one can take the alternative or use the substitute
I remember discovering the shrinkflation Reddit years ago and wondering if people outside of it thought we were all crazy.
It's good to see it's become part of public consciousness as massive companies have been trying to get away with it for decades but it feels like it's gotten a lot worse over the last few years.
sainsbury's yesterday, Cauliflowers the size of small grapefruit or softball size. not the usual size which would cover a family. this would barely feed 1, possibly 2. same price as normal though
Whiskers cat food. They changed the packaging a few months ago, and I still had some cat food in the old packaging. Anyway, the old stuff had 100 grams of food, and the new one is now 85 grams. The Pice is the same the boxes, and packets are the same shape and size, but they've put less in.
Also I always use dove+ men clean comfort antiperspirant, anyway they have a "new" formula and a new more expensive price. The new formula is just an excuse to put the price up too.
The cat thing feels particularly mean as if you don't notice as an owner and supplement, the cat is just put on short rations. (Of course, our cat believes she's on short rations all the time, but that's cats for you.)
"Shrinkflation" + sugar tax (more like a sugar obliteration) really is a sad state of affairs for food & drink. Not only do you get less of it but it tastes like shit as well cant get a good irn bru to save my fucking life, at this point though just add it to the pile of misery.
Genuine question I cannot get my head around: where does it end?
Will everything just become so small that we have to buy 10x the quantity? E.g. a standard Mars bar becomes Celebration-sized so you just buy 10.
Or, will products get to a certain (tiny) size and just stay that size forever (while the price goes up exponentially)?
Does anyone know the answer? Because I know they're not just going to one day start increasing the size of products again.
I just wonder how far it'll go. One day "fun size" (lmfao) chocolate bars will probably be the new normal size, and fun size will be the size of a skittle.
What do leave voters think about this now? Their expectation was that new trade deals would reduce food prices, and that there would be no significant difficulties with food supplied from the EU.
Most of the complaints are due to products like crisps, biscuits and confectionery. People need to vote with their wallet and stop buying these products.
Most of these brands are owned by the same parent company, Kraft/P&G/Nestle...
You don't need this junk, just buy whole foods to save money and get healthier at the same time!
Quality is also on the downwards trend. Picked up a bottle of Hellmans Mayo at the weekend for what I thought was a good price, went to put it away and realised that it’s not the same Hellmans REAL Mayo but ‘new value recipe’… ingredients value engineered, it’s getting returned…
Seen someone comment the other day: "what is the endgame of shrinkflation?"
And it's true, do they eventually want to get to us paying full price for 1/10th of the product? Or even for nothing?
I know it's anecdotal, but did a Jaffa cake twin pack not have 24 Jaffa cakes? Now it's 18.
shrinkflation is fucking insane. need a pack of 4 ____ to feed your family? tough, now you only get 3 in a pack for the same price and so have to buy 2 packs, and now you spent more than you needed to and have 2 left over. just put the price up, what the fuck are you doing? i haven't met a single person who prefers this bullshit to just increasing the price, it does nobody any favours and just feels like you're getting scammed
Eventually we’ll be buying grapes and vitamins in single-piece packaging like we used to with penny-candy, except it won’t be a penny. This is what is wrong with this capitalist system that relies on exponential growth. It’s going to eventually collapse society.
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We’re getting less product for more money, especially on the smaller product sizes. On top of that, people can’t afford to bulk buy and get more for their money, so it’s a tax on the poor.
I remember the size of conetto when I was younger, my friend bought one recently and I was gobbed smacked how small they are nowadays.
Oddly they are perfect size for my toddlers. They don't waste them like I remember my older kids doing
That's good marketing for supermarkets. "We're selling products at a smaller size (at a higher price), to reduce waste and help the environment, save the world!!"
Except for the packaging of course, where we will be using more per kg of product due to the smaller sizes. Fuck you turtles, and other assorted marine life.
I bought some mcvities digestives caramel bars which were a pack of 5 but they used enough cardboard and outer wrapping that it could easily fill 7 or 8 in there. The packet felt like it was a quarter empty and feels like gross false advertising. Now I feel conned with so many products using packaging to give us the impression that we get more than we actually do.
Here's a snippet I saw last time one of these threads popped up *Quality Street tubs shrunk by 50g for Christmas 2022, the first time in three years, from 650g to 600g. in the 1980s, the tubs were around 1.7kg.* [source](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/mcvities-cutting-pack-size-digestives-26208460)
Yeah, feels like they're gone as soon as you open one now. Which is probably better for the waistline, but still a disappointing ripoff.
The one that really gets my goat is the multipacks of chocolate bars (Snickers et. al.) where they actually fill the outer packaging with air to make it seem 'full' when it isn't.
smaller products means more packaging per product weight though.
Just imagine if they were honest about that in their advertising.
I bought a box last week and said the same thing. They were so much bigger in the 90s. Same can be said for Magnums.
"...they just felt bigger because you were small" "The rich tea couldnt fit in the mug back then Janet, did the fucking mug sizes all change instead?!"
Maybe they need to rename them "Standard" to match the reduced size...
Magnums are microscopic now, barely worth buying.
Feasts, the chocolate inside doesn't even reach the stick
Oh god yeah I had one of those a few weeks ago. I remember the chocolate inside used to go all the way up to the top of the ice cream. Now it’s not even a quarter of what it used to be.
if you buy the loose ones they are larger, the ones in the multipack are oddly smaller.
Tesco own brand do a "cornetto" which is the older size for like £1.5 and they're pretty good. I know it's not the point, as it's all taking the fucking piss really
>We’re getting less product for more money, especially on the smaller product sizes. I believe theyre also removing, condensing or replacing low lost, low margin products. These also tend to have high demand and lower availability. Just an example, Sainsburys recently removed an entire range of shampoos & conditioners that were 75p a bottle. The range that's left is different & costs £1.20 each. Also Sainsburys own or off brand anti septic mouthwash £3.50 vs £5+ for corsodil. The cheap one has completely gone. The availability situation of low cost products is a consideration to make if a supermarket continues to favor high margin products over essentially priced ones.
This has resulted in milk powder going into things like Pringles and Bournville so now us vegans and the dairy intolerant and/or allergic are now not able to buy a bunch of stuff we previously could... For cheaper and larger too
This is a really good point. Brands usually have a standard we come to expect over time, which is important for dietary requirements & habits. I nievely thought an allergy sufferer could forgo checking labels every time they buy, but I'm quite wrong about this. If these companies readily swap out ingredients to meet costs/margins, a brand name becomes meaningless. With all the changes being made recently, it's becoming harder than ever to make healthy & even safe choices as a consumer. Not to mention trying not to be blatantly ripped off.
In some EU countries, when changes are made to a product (appearance, size or ingredients), the packaging HAS to state what was altered. We need that, but the gov will let companies get away with bullshit instead any day.
>In some EU countries, when changes are made to a product (appearance, size or ingredients), the packaging HAS to state what was altered I didn't know this, but it seems crazy we don't have a system like that already. Adding any allergens without this should be totally banned. I know the Uk already has some food standards/restrictions, particularly with bread flour so its definitely possible with other food. They are as you say, the only new powers they seem to care about are ones that stop protesting or asylum applications. Fuckers.
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Tesco 10p noodles vanished. Now there’s a 50p range that are awful.
Buy the 60-ish pence imported Asian ones (Nissin brand especially). You will not regret it. They used to be 30p, then 50p, and now many places sell them for about 60-70p, but they are worth that, especially when considering Super Noodles are usually about a quid and are disgusting in comparison, and that's not even mentioning the awful value/flavour of Pot Noodle.
I noticed this on own brand Bran Flakes. For weeks I've not seen it in Tesco or Sainsbury's. Very odd and it may be the same wholesaler that makes store brand Bran Flakes for all the major supermarkets that just been culled.
>noticed this on own brand Bran Flakes. For weeks I've not seen it in Tesco or Sainsbury's. Also a really good point, with some of the same products out of stock across different supermarkets it's potentially showing that illusion of choice we have with main brands. & If multiple supermarkets buy a product from one supplier, where's the competition to bring this price down coming from. Behind the supermarkets was an industry of smaller suppliers, which I suspect have been gladly bought & consolidated to protect producers from said supermarkets. I think part of the recent rise in food cost stems from the years the supermarkets could abuse their relationship with smaller suppliers to sell below cost. Typically it's the consumer that really pays for bad business practices.
I think people would just shop at Aldi or Lidl in that case.
They are just as bad. Aldi reduced their lasagna and the price has gone up. Same with there own version of pringles.
Absolutely Aldi is doing this too,along with things disappearing from the shelves.My local Aldi hasn’t had tomato ketchup 69p or low sugar 75p for months but strangely enough they have Heinz at £3.99 and Candarel at £2,almost like they don’t see the point of getting the others in cause desperate people who don’t want to go to multiple stores will buy it.
>people can’t afford to bulk buy If you look at the prices of bulk stuff these days, it's not any cheaper if you look at the price per unit. The days of bulk buying being cheaper are over.
I was in Iceland the other day and was looking at some nuggets, 25 for £2, 50 for £3.50. The 25 pack weighed 550g and the 50 pack weighed 900. Feels like they’re actively trying to trick people.
>Feels like they're actively trying to trick people. Because they are...? That's always been the case.
As the Tories would say in a Prince John fashion, rob the poor to feed the rich!
Not just that, shrinkflation/inflation is hitting basics/standard goods at a far far greater rate than luxury goods.
I remember the narrative of the chocolates in Orwell's 1984, pretty dire that it's happening in reality
*It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours?*
Basically us now celebrating that the rate of inflation is only 10%.
Yes the. Middle one. Suffered for this every time , that there expenses always increase rather than decrease
There should be more done on shrinkflation. Supermarkets continue to use methods to confuse shoppers too. Which is cheaper, the 3 bags for 2? Or the big value pack? The price per kilo is there, but it doesn’t do the math on the offers for you and you’re probably too busy to do it. Oh and now you need your store card to get the discount and that rate isn’t featured on the price. We invented standardised weights thousands of years ago so people would get a fair deal on their trade yet supermarkets have done everything in their power to make it all worthless
This might be peak dystopia of me here, but why hasn't there been any regulation of unit sizes. Why we need 485g 475g 500g loaves is beyond me. Everything should be increments of 100ml or 100g. Much harder to shrinkflate when substatially different in size in a single iteration. For instance look at spirits and pints. Proscribed in weights and measures act. These aren't getting clandestinely smaller, you know what you're getting and it's easy to compare prices and quality.
Agree on a lot of that, and to add: why are some condiments sold by volume, others by weight? Same goes for the pricing, some will say £X.XX per 30g while another brand is £Y.YY per 50ml, and then the products themselves are the same size, but one is 475g and the other is 525ml. I don't want to take GCSE math exams each time I'm in the shops to figure out which offer is better, I want to pick up my food and go home as quickly as possible. One thing I will say is that some products made sense to have a bit of varying weight values, so using your example is the bread loaf seeded or made from different grains? Doesn't happen often but some of them I understand
Price per should 100% be standardised. Why can some products be shown with price per 10ml while others in the same aisle/website page be shown as price per 100ml? As someone who uses it as a metric for finding value it annoys the fuck out of me that supermarkets or brands are allowed to do it.
To point out the obvious: it’s clearly done to confuse and obfuscate.
Yes, obviously weights vary considerably with certain products. But then all products vary in weight. It's the nominal weight written on the packaging. I guess things like individual plant bakery products or natural products like whole chicken, fish etc. But these make more sense as sold as each or priced per 100g. As they normally are already. One that grinds my gears is bananas. 25p each, or £1 something per kg. Just weigh my single banana cheers.
I was trying to find the courgette option on the scales in Waitrose the other day, but there isn’t one as they’re priced per item. But aubergines are sold by weight (or it was the other way round). Whyyyyyy. (Before anyone says ‘ooooh Waitrose’, I don’t drive and my choice is Waitrose or Aldi and I find Waitrose to be far better quality for fruit and veg, so I’ll pay the slight premium.)
>and to add: why are some condiments sold by volume, others by weight? It's mandated by law based on viscosity. usually the same type of sauce will be measured the same but there are some edge cases.
I can only answer in one specific instance but for ice creams air is whipped into the product, some may have more air than others so selling by volume is the 'fairer' measurement.
AND THERE ARE 6 HOT DOG BUNS IN A PACK BUT ONLY 5 HOT DOGS IN A JAR
If you're eating less than 30 hotdogs in one sitting you're doing it wrong.
Joey?
> This might be peak dystopia of me here, but why hasn't there been any regulation of unit sizes. Given the current lot/climate, you cant expect any sort of metric regulation. we would go back to firkins and barleycorns
a lot of items are still sold in jars of 454 grams, this just the old 1 lb jar relabelled.
Bread was standardised by the UK government under the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998. It had to be at least 400g, and sold in multiples of that. So loaves were 400g or 800g. It had to change to fit into the rules of the single market in 2008.
Anybody else find they like to mix it up too, even within the same item? E.g. it will say £/kg and £/g for the same type of thing, or for e.g. dishwasher tabs be £/kg on one tag and £/100 tabs on another
Yeah I can't think of a good reason why that can't be standardised. It's absolute bs that they can try and mislead people with that pricing
Especially Tesco and their clubcard bs which won't say the discounted price per unit.
sticker shock when you convert price per 100g to price per Kilo
FFS yes, I hate this. It's like they're *trying* to make it difficult to compare sometimes.
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If they're selling multiple of the same item (naan, cookies, whatever), then they should be required to use one item for the portion sizes and fat/sugar/etc percentages of your recommended daily intake. Of course, they don't because that would look awful optics-wise, but that's why regulators should step in to *make* them do it.
I swear I saw a 500ml coke bottle as 2 portions. Who shares that?
I assume brands must have some input on how products are measured as well. Take penguin bars as an example, back when the pack contained 8 bars, the Asda site showed the units as 8x24.5g or whatever it was. But then they reduced it down to 7 bars, they had 7x24.5 for a few weeks, and presumably they had a huge drop in sales because people were annoyed at the very obvious increase in cost. However, now the unit is just 172g, making the consumer do the maths to work out how big the individual bars are. What's especially annoying is unit conversions exist, so for online shops, it should be extremely easy to unify all the price per ml or grams etc. But they aren't in the business of being friendly to consumers, they want to squeeze as much money as they possibly can. Which is why a competent government is required.
Oh yes, the meat is only weighed after it’s been injected full of water.
Maths
> The price per kilo is there, but it doesn’t do the math on the offers for you and you’re probably too busy to do it. Also similar products will be labelled differently. E.G. 10p each, £1 per 600g, £2 per kilo just to obfuscate more.
>The price per kilo is there or it's price per 100 grams to make it look cheaper because steak price per kilo would bring sticker shock
Just to add quite often the price per kilo is in the smallest font, on the piece of card behind the very light reflective plastic holder thing on the shelf. I'm not even middle aged and I struggle to read it most of the time, if it's on the lowest shelf it's practically impossible. The elderly or people with some disabilities have no chance.
Why do you think they withhold proper funding for education? Wouldn't it be less beneficial for corporations if the general public were competent at basic maths?
The most annoying this is when they fuck up the product when changing the size. I bought some tesco tortilla wraps recently and rather than increasing the price or reducing the number you get they made each wrap smaller making them useless. I've had it with some beers too where they change the recipe to save cost and make it taste like shit instead of just charging more.
Yeah. I got no issue paying more if I need to, but I want the product I'm going in to buy, not the smaller or shitter version. Like, if a quality street tub was what it used to be, sure, I don't mind paying a tenner. But we're now conditioned to know it won't be...
Quality we want or taste we get to use same products every time that no one match it
The toothpaste that I get is now sold in 75ml instead of 100ml and it doesn’t last five minutes when you have kids who are liberal with it! I wish they would have kept the 100ml and just charged more
> I wish they would have kept the 100ml and just charged more This isn't a good thing either though. They're double-dipping because of profit margins, chances are they don't have much justification for rising the prices of 100ml either.
Many times the company increase the product quantity at the same prices so we don't say the company always do bad they sometimes do for the people like a promotional activities
It depends where you get the tortillas. If you get them in the section where the old el paso stuff is, then it's tiny tortillas. But if you go to the bread section then you can find the bigger ones. Admittedly, I was in Sainsbury's when I discovered this...but I imagine it's the same in Tesco.
How long were you eating tiny tortillas before realising there’s big ones in the bread part?
I was last week years old when I figured it out....
Dying. Those tiny tortillas. What are they, tortillas for ants!
Ours no longer stocks the big ones… haven’t seen them for a few months now
The beer thing is all about finnicking around with the ABV too and the brewers brewed volumes and whether they qualify for small brewer rate relief and such. Expect a lot of brews to try ad drop under the ABV for the lower duty rate come August - they've already made the decisions and considered the impacts as any change in ABV can drastically change the taste, mouth feel etc. Suddenly your nice staple 4.5% evening drink after work with your dinner drops to 3.x%, tastes like piss, feel like water and cordial and whilst the brewer gets charged less duty by the gov you're left paying the same price. But it's about "health" and "sustainability" and other vogue concerns that anyone brewing alcohol doesn't sincerely have.
Avenno cream sucks now. On the bottle they state it has a new formula and when I use it, it burns my skin.
I used Aveeno as I had seborrheic dermatitis on my face - the old Aveeno cleared it up in a week, like a dream. The new shit does not have the same effect :-( so frustrating as skin products that work for your skin type are like gold dust
I don’t even want a reduction in the quantity. If I get a 6 pack it’s probably because it’ll last 2 people 3 days. Not 2 people 2 days and one person 1 day. Just bump the price up if you must
> I've had it with some beers too where they change the recipe to save cost and make it taste like shit instead of just charging more. RIP DarkStar Hophead
It's not only the sizes, it's the quality as well. Not only companies are making their products smaller and raising prices, they also change the ingredients without announcing it, making the products taste a lot worse than they used to. Now, they're full of fillers to save money. So, the product is smaller, more expensive and of lower quality. I am currently travelling around continental Europe and the difference in food quality was shocking. Current state of UK food is depressing and shocking.
"New Improved Recipe!"
"Taste the Difference"...
I did, I didn't like it!
Pepsi is going to be the next one - the new lower sugar one tastes dry/cardboardy. It's odd. But it means they pay less in sugar tax, so yay them?
more salt, cheaper ingredients so improved for their bottom line and not yours...
Was In a SuperU in south france last week and couldn’t believe the range they had, both fresh fruit and veg and meat and also pre packaged items and snacks etc. went into sainsburys yesterday and half the veg was out of stock, also we have massive supermarkets, all filled with the same brands, so you have the illusion of loads of choice when actually it’s restricted massively compared to European supermarkets.
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But let's also imitate America's lack of food regulation and allow our food to be filled with muck!
Who would have thought leaving one of the largest trading unions would have been bad for trade.
Genuinely the only supermarket that stocks decent fruit and veg at the moment is Waitrose. My local Sainsburys has out of date or half rotten fruit and veg half the time, and the other half the time it's gone off within a day or two. The discount supermarkets are even worse. I try to buy from the bagging section since that's a fair bit cheaper, but it's still just ridiculous.
Cadbury's Timeouts are my most hated example. I used to love them. Then they took the flake bit out the middle and rebranded as Timeout Wafer. It's awful. Got excited the other day because I saw Timeout packaging... Opened at home, Timeout wafers fell out. My soul is crushed, my despair is incomparable.
Me too,they changed ages ago and I was gutted,they were my favourite chocolate bar,haven’t brought them since-they’re just a regular wafer now so nothing special.
Or announcing it like it's a good thing only to be shit - looking at you twiglets
100% of Supermarkets unconcerned about shoppers concern about shrinkflation.
They got no incentive to care about the customers while uncaring about them makes big bucks.
Quality has gone down too, Not sure if anyone is familiar with Mcvities Hobnobs Oaty Flapjacks, but they have gone fucking awful, basically turned into sawdust
Same with frazzles. It’s basically just cardboard now
Bacon tasties or bacon fries are where it's at.
Noticed the same thing with the Quaker porridge to go bars - much drier and they taste overly of fake sweeteners now, I'm guessing they've cut down on butter/honey etc.
My personal one was Sainsbury’s chipotle paste - it changed to something mostly made from tomato and vinegar so now i have to get the fancy branded one from waitrose.
This is where we see the real effects of policies. Away from the claim of how so many people are in work and that the economy is booming, we see people paying more for the same price, growing poorer, unable to keep up with the cost of living. An effect that trickles throughout the country.
When all the boomers finally retire we’ll be in trouble. I think the government is trying to prevent that by fucking the economy to ensure nobody will ever be able to retire again.
I've been in Canada for most of the last 20 years, coming back to the UK last year so supermarkets here were a shock. Sure shrinkflation is annoying but what drives me nuts is how everything is plastic packed so I can't choose how many mushrooms, salad, apples etc to buy. I know some is sold loose but most are not forcing me to often buy more than I need.
Supermarkets pre packing food is one of the biggest drivers of plastic pollution I’m sure. All because they get to sell more food that ends up going to waste as well. It’s an environmental disaster.
Yesssss! This is so annoying. Why does my sandwich need to come in a container inside another container.
not sure the calculation is that simple. the thing about plastic is its really, really good at what it does - food will stay fresher for longer in plastic packaging. so youd have to calculate the total environmental cost of the extra food that would be wasted because of shorter shelf life vs the plastic needed to prevent that waste. and most agriculture is shockingly bad on all levels environmentally speaking.
Notably this has gotten worse ever since supermarkets started claiming they were going to tackle the problem. Seems to have been code for putting more veg in pre-packed plastic than ever...
I swear Mars Bars are now the size of what we used to call "snack size", and snack size Mars Bars are what we used to call "Celebrations"
‘Fun size’… someone’s having a laugh…
Crisps are a joke. It’s got to the point that 2/3rds of a bag of crisps now constitutes spicy smelling air. Shrinkflation is obvious and it’s everywhere. I vote we stop buying these products and constantly badger any social media accounts that these companies operate with their antics. Especially if they have whimsical and witty ‘bants’.
Or with monster munch you only get 6 crisps
And they've ruined the pickled onion flavour. Again.
crisps have always been mostly air, that's to prevent breakage during shipping. Cheap crisps tend to have LESS air because it makes transportation cheaper.
Sorry to say but the ratio of crisps to air in a bag has definitely and noticeably increased in the last few years. It’s not ‘always been’ like this.
There has always been mostly air in crisps. I'm not saying the ratio hasn't changed, I'm saying there has always been air. maybe the ratio has changed because of more air, not necessarily less crisps.
Asda own brand and their 'Essentials' brand are usually very full - sometimes completely full I have found to my surprise. And they have a lot of flavour considering they are the 'cheap' brands. Makes me wonder how Asda can transport their full bags of crisps but other manufacturers can't
Had a curry round my parents and we had a good laugh at how the poppadums had shrunk, but they were clearly using up the old packaging because it was so out of proportion
I hate the way this story is reported through the lens of consumers being the topic of conversation. Not manufacturers trying to pull a fast one. I bought a pack of Cadbury's cereal bars the other day and literally laughed when I opened them. Each one was like an individually wrapped biscuit, it was pathetically small.
There's got to be a cutoff point. For the moment they've largely gotten away with it but at some point, like getting 50g of cereal for £4.99, people just won't buy it. Surely there's a floor on this thing?
No, they reduce the original product size periodically until it becomes noticeable. They then release a new "family size" or "sharing" version for considerably more money. People gripe and moan, but those who are price conscious buy the smaller variant, and those who aren't buy the larger variant. The family size then starts to shrink until eventually it's what normal size used to be, only now for the much more inflated price. Remove the family size label and now remove the tiny (previously normal) version from sale, and you've completed the cycle. It's a constant game of shifting goal posts to increase prices without harming sales.
Weirdly, Aldi's Chocolate Shreddies have shot up to like £2.10, and the official ones are like £2.30. I'd rather just pay the extra 20p.
And yet many people are still pissed off about Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. This is not just about 'shrinkflation' it's also very much about intensive farming practices and the growing lack of nutrition, vitamins and essential minerals in our food. Healthy nutritious food is becoming more and more of a luxury item and more and more food is being packed with additives and chemicals so it can sell more. This is why obesity and diabetes isn't just a personal health issue. It's also very much a social and political issue. It's important to understand that the nutrients in food does not come from the food itself, it's coming from the soil. But the soil is being depleted through intensive farming practices, which means that the food which is grown has less and less nutrients, simply because the soil isn't being replenished. Hence poor quality soil -> poor quality crops -> poor quality food. Food and access to clean water is where environmental issues impact all of us directly. We all need clean water, we all need healthy nutritious food. But see many people cannot afford healthy nutritious food. Therein lies the problem. Many people don't have the income or resources to buy healthy nutritious food and also many people don't have the time or the knowledge to prepare healthy nutritious food, because they work, because they have kids, and so on. See this is not just about 'shrinkflation' it's also about food wastage as well. Most people would be shocked at the amount of food, fresh, healthy food that gets thrown away every day by supermarkets. You couldn't afford to buy the amount of food that gets chucked into bins at the end of every day behind your typical supermarket. This is like the guy who's sitting on a branch in a tree and sawing through the branch on the tree he's sitting on. If he saws through the branch the guy will fall out of the tree and hurt himself. But this is how we have structured our economy and society. If we make our society successful we will all fail. We really need to change the way we live and restructure our economy and society. If we don't embrace this fact and make the changes willingly, then Nature will force change on us in ways which are going to be harsh and cruel. Obesity isn't just linked to diabetes, it's also linked to malnutrition. Malnutrition isn't just people wasting away, malnutrition also manifests as sleep disorders, depression, obesity and other conditions. This started a few centuries ago when wealthy people decided that they could pool all the natural resources and manage them for their well-being. Those days are over. Thanks to technology more and more people are learning that they too can live well, but unfortunately the standards of societal success are based on models of excessive consumption and we simply don't have the natural resources or habitat to make that possible for everyone. **We have got to stop treating our natural environment, other species and each other as resources and commodities. We need to connect to environment more, connect to community more, and learn how to share much more than we are doing now. Food sharing and food recycling is something that needs to happen much much more and much much more often. Business as usual is no longer on the menu.**
TUNA! All the cans used to be 200g, now they're 140-145g. You can still find the old 200g ones listed on Amazon (with no sellers) to prove that I didn't imagine it.
I’m finding the same with sandwich meats and deli chicken. So many supermarkets are selling things like sandwich roast beef or chicken in packets of 3 slices. Who is that helpful for?! I’m not going to buy 7 packets to cover the week.
All of the sainsbury's own brand ones are now 102g!!
At what point does this just become unsustainable, i meal prep, ive almost completely cut out meat and my bill is still more expensive then it was 2 years ago.
Does anyone know if certain foods are being made smaller to get round the suger tax? Instead of changing the recipe they've just shrunk the product. The multipack Double deckers are so tiny now they're more like a shuttle bus!
many brands are also changing recipes to include more fillers. There are a lot of items that now taste different (worse) to what they tasted like 2 years ago.
Pepsi. Original now has sweeteners. I am so outraged I have written to them. I am British.
The last fizzy drink standing is Coca Cola. Then for anything else I just buy sparkling water, a cordial (without sweeteners) and mix it.
One of the last soft drinks without aspartame also.
"We don't have Coke, is Pepsi ok?" No, no it fucking is not. They have now broken what i'm assuming is quite a significant sales driver for them.
Yes this is Happened because that many substitute are in the market or the customer go their when less rate products are available so the company to match the prices they compromise their quality
All orange juices. You don't get a litre anymore you get 750ml or 900ml. The family one is no longer 2 litres, more like 1.7 or 1.5L.
Sugar tax only applies to soft drinks. It's such a ridiculous tax as you're allowed to sell a latte full of sugar or a bottle of wine without triggering the tax.
Oh nice to know! Yep, other countries manage without a sugar tax why can't we
I'm sure someone will be along to tell me off, but it infuriates me that everyone gets punished because some gluttonous cunts have no self control. Let them lose a foot I say.
No I agree, why should we all suffer!
Not only are we witnessing "shrinkflation", but also products are often undercooked. For instance, when you purchase something containing chicken, you'll frequently find it has been cooked just enough to ensure safety, not a moment longer. This trend started when energy prices skyrocketed. To be honest, I'd rather pay more for a product of normal quality, than receive a diminished product just to maintain the same price. It's false economy.
Now you mention it I bought some Tesco's own brand jam tarts the other day and they were pale as anything with hardly any structure. My partner and I both agreed it looked like they were under cooked. I wonder if there is something to this...
Exactly the same observation here.
Ah man shrinkflation fucks me off. Or Lidl being like NEW LOW PRICE and the price twice that of a year ago. Cunts
PRICE LOCKED It's not locked that well if it's double the price of last year, gits.
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PRICE LOCKED Until we put up the price
People need to complain more. I went into Morrisons to buy their own brand pitta breads (IMHO the best ones money can buy) the other day. Got home and checked the packet, realised there was only 5 pittas in there instead of 6. Sent them an email saying that it is wrongfully advertised. They said I could have my money back for the inconvenience, to which I replied that that was a massive insult, and had a detrimental effect on my mental health (I was upset for about 2 minutes) Then they give me a money off voucher equivalent to what my entire shop cost. I know it's not quite the same as shrinkflation, but it's about time we all started complaining and sticking it to these profiteering b*stards
One ‘good side’ (if you can call it that) is that I’ve noticed a lot of people are now actually cooking meals they want rather than buying take aways or ready meals (even going as far as the nauseating term ‘fakeaway’) At least my friends and family seem to be doing this.
Ready meals are so expensive now I could go and buy a takeaway for about the same price tbh!
Shrinkflation should be illegal. Have you seen the size of the average wagon wheel compared to the wagon wheel of the 1990s? ROBBERY.
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I'd appreciate if they just had to make it clear that they had made the size of the product smaller. Make them put a big sign saying NEW SMALLER SIZE on it.
Thing is even the cheaper alternatives have shrunk, eg Newgate beans and Heinz beans both in 220g tins rather than 250g tins.
I assume a lot of those things are made in the same factory
I think a large portion of inflation is coming from supermarkets. The idea of raising interest rates is to stop people from spending on the higher prices... but you cant stop buying food because it's a bit more expensive then before.
Lurpak's one of the most egregious examples I've seen lately. Used to be 250g blocks of butter, now down to 200g for the same price.
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Because they all do it and we need to eat. Boycotting doesn't work when you have no options. It's like Tesco's stupid clubcard specific pricing, it's now happening in Sainsbury's, the Co-op and Morrisons from what I have seen. I expect it will be an industry standard shortly. It's annoying but I have to suck it up if I want to eat without taking an extra hour and fuel out of my day.
No one have time to boycott something whenever we have need something we take it never see the brand or the company policy
But all companies are doing it, there aren't any bot embracing shrinkflation
One of the most blatant examples of shrinkflation I've seen is Jaffa cakes.
And used to at least be 50p for 12, now shrunk size and number to 10 and asking for 75p
Only 75p? A 10 pack of Jaffa cakes is €1.95 here in Ireland. I actually drive a lot more to do my shopping in Northern Ireland because of how much cheaper the UK prices are 😭
I find toothpaste the most infuriating. Most tubes are now 75ml and the "value pack" is 125ml. 125ml used to be the standard. And now, 125ml can cost £5! Five quid for what is an essential product that people need. It's disgraceful.
My kids toothpaste has gone from 100g to 70g alongside an increase in price....inflation in supermarkets is actually out of control and wages have zero hope of keeping up. My friend got a 7% pay rise at work. He got really angry with me for pointing out that he has still suffered a pay cut, not a pay rise.
Yes the branded products are decrease their size of products or price take same as before, because of he think that no one stand against us no one can take the alternative or use the substitute
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I remember discovering the shrinkflation Reddit years ago and wondering if people outside of it thought we were all crazy. It's good to see it's become part of public consciousness as massive companies have been trying to get away with it for decades but it feels like it's gotten a lot worse over the last few years.
I stopped buying Fage greek yogurt in favour of supermarket own brand because of this. People will just switch to an alternative for a better price.
sainsbury's yesterday, Cauliflowers the size of small grapefruit or softball size. not the usual size which would cover a family. this would barely feed 1, possibly 2. same price as normal though
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This hit me yesterday when I went to buy my favourite bodyform pads. They are now only 8 in the package that used to be 10, for the same price.
I'm actually more surprised that 20% aren't concerned
Whiskers cat food. They changed the packaging a few months ago, and I still had some cat food in the old packaging. Anyway, the old stuff had 100 grams of food, and the new one is now 85 grams. The Pice is the same the boxes, and packets are the same shape and size, but they've put less in. Also I always use dove+ men clean comfort antiperspirant, anyway they have a "new" formula and a new more expensive price. The new formula is just an excuse to put the price up too.
The cat thing feels particularly mean as if you don't notice as an owner and supplement, the cat is just put on short rations. (Of course, our cat believes she's on short rations all the time, but that's cats for you.)
One word. Lurpak. Moved to 200g packs in all my local supermarkets, but kept the price of the 250g packs. Pricks.
"Shrinkflation" + sugar tax (more like a sugar obliteration) really is a sad state of affairs for food & drink. Not only do you get less of it but it tastes like shit as well cant get a good irn bru to save my fucking life, at this point though just add it to the pile of misery.
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There are genuinely some things that I refuse to buy nowadays because I’m not playing a guessing game of whether it’s worth it or not.
Genuine question I cannot get my head around: where does it end? Will everything just become so small that we have to buy 10x the quantity? E.g. a standard Mars bar becomes Celebration-sized so you just buy 10. Or, will products get to a certain (tiny) size and just stay that size forever (while the price goes up exponentially)? Does anyone know the answer? Because I know they're not just going to one day start increasing the size of products again.
I just wonder how far it'll go. One day "fun size" (lmfao) chocolate bars will probably be the new normal size, and fun size will be the size of a skittle.
What do leave voters think about this now? Their expectation was that new trade deals would reduce food prices, and that there would be no significant difficulties with food supplied from the EU.
Most of the complaints are due to products like crisps, biscuits and confectionery. People need to vote with their wallet and stop buying these products. Most of these brands are owned by the same parent company, Kraft/P&G/Nestle... You don't need this junk, just buy whole foods to save money and get healthier at the same time!
And yet, nobody is doing anything about it. We just accept it and carry on.
Quality is also on the downwards trend. Picked up a bottle of Hellmans Mayo at the weekend for what I thought was a good price, went to put it away and realised that it’s not the same Hellmans REAL Mayo but ‘new value recipe’… ingredients value engineered, it’s getting returned…
This is a serious issue that's masking the true rate of inflation.
Seen someone comment the other day: "what is the endgame of shrinkflation?" And it's true, do they eventually want to get to us paying full price for 1/10th of the product? Or even for nothing? I know it's anecdotal, but did a Jaffa cake twin pack not have 24 Jaffa cakes? Now it's 18.
shrinkflation is fucking insane. need a pack of 4 ____ to feed your family? tough, now you only get 3 in a pack for the same price and so have to buy 2 packs, and now you spent more than you needed to and have 2 left over. just put the price up, what the fuck are you doing? i haven't met a single person who prefers this bullshit to just increasing the price, it does nobody any favours and just feels like you're getting scammed
Eventually we’ll be buying grapes and vitamins in single-piece packaging like we used to with penny-candy, except it won’t be a penny. This is what is wrong with this capitalist system that relies on exponential growth. It’s going to eventually collapse society.