I've slowly realized that many people on the internet use it casually, but like you, I always assumed they were alt-right (new main right) or libertarian at a minimum for a long time.
I would LOVE to see more of this. Looking at you GATORADE, with your half-inch-deep plastic rim on the bottom and new hourglass bottle shape. 32oz sized bottles are 28oz now and MORE expensive. Fuck shrinkflation to death.
Yeah for some reason drinks seem the most effected by shrinkflation, I hate going to the drinks aisles these days because everything seems so overpriced, even just regular tap/spring water
If only smart glass is as popular as mobile phones. When Google introduced their smart glass, I dreamt of a day when a price history overlay is displayed when looking at a barcode, like how Keepa is doing for Amazon.
I also like German price display which has effective price, as in Eur per liter for drinks, making it dead simple to compare products. A smart glass will make it available everywhere.
Back to Carrefour, I really like that they are pushing pro consumer actions. However, we all know too well that they won't do the same when it's their products which are shrinking. Still better than no action though.
It is but it does nothing to curb shrinkflation in my experience.
I'm trying to think of a way to mandate this kind of notification but I can't think of a way to do it that could be both clear and mandated. Perhaps if the price per changes there needs to be a history listed on the label.
One big problem with it is that in the short-term it discourages sales, so groceries aren't incentivised to do it except as a stunt like this, so they won't want the notices to be prominent. Ultimately they still want you to buy the stuff because then they make money.
I'd love to see this naming and shaming becoming a standard. I want to know if the product I'm buying has changed and while I try to do this myself, it can be tricky to keep track of all the products I buy and it's not like I'm scanning the exact weight every time and memorizing it, just that it's generally the same weight. These scumbag companies are always trying to sneak by all these changes over time, it's great to finally get a spotlight shining on it. If some sort of legislation can be made to force companies to note changes in products made in the last 6 months on the label, that would be great.
Exactly my thought for a long time. A law which mandates companies to...I don't know...put on a label, occupying at least 1/3 of the whole packaging with giant red/white font to say at least for 3-6 months: "The net weight/contenct was reduced by 15%."
Tbf, their stated purpose is to bring attention to the price discrepancy on diminished products. I would assume they believe their pricing is fair in that respect.
After seeing so, so many french brands and retailers remain in Russia after that country invaded Ukraine (the rest of it, as they occupied Crimea already), I just started assuming all large french companies are complete total shits and have been boycotting them since then.
Were I live there a lot of large french retailers, so this actually has made a significant difference in my purchasing habits.
I know only one case where this shrinkflation thing was stopped - one beer company decided to sell 0.4l cans, because "that's what the customers want". It turned out pretty fast that wasn't what their customers wanted :)
The French supermarket chain Carrefour has put labels on its shelves this week warning shoppers of “shrinkflation”, the phenomenon where manufacturers reduce pack sizes rather than increase prices.
It has slapped price warnings on products from Lindt chocolates to Lipton iced tea to pressure top consumer goods suppliers Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to tackle the issue in advance of much-anticipated contract talks.
Since Monday, Carrefour has been putting stickers on products that have shrunk in size but cost more even after raw materials prices have eased, to rally consumer support as retailers prepare to face the world’s biggest brands in negotiations due to start soon and end by 15 October.
“Obviously, the aim in stigmatising these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to rethink their pricing policy,” Stefen Bompais, the director of client communications at Carrefour, said in an interview.
The Carrefour chief executive, Alexandre Bompard, who also heads the retail industry lobby group FDC, has repeatedly said consumer goods companies are not cooperating in efforts to cut the price of thousands of staples despite a fall in the cost of raw materials.
In this he is backed by the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, who in June summoned 75 big retailers and consumer groups to his ministry urging them to cut prices.
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Good for them. I made tacos for the first time in ages a couple of days ago, and I could not believe the size of the shells now. I would have called them child-sized, they were so small. It's disgusting.
Motherfucker, have you never had a big ass burrito? The real Mexicans make their own tortillas, and if they feel like it, they'll make one big enough to be used as a bedroll.
Geat idea! There's no reason this couldn't be done everywhere by citizens with access to sticker printing services... I've spotted a few products myself in the past year and wouldn't be against sticking some labels on them to warn my fellow shoppers :)
To be fair, most likely of these ‘foods’ look like complete junk. Over-processed shit. Huge mark-ups on what amounts to packaging and cheap fat/sugar/industrial flavours.
Shrinkflation is largely a myth. Items do not shrink relative to inflation, in fact the majority of claimed products are larger now than they were 50 years ago.
People often cite certain chocolate bar sizes with comparing the size today to that from the 90s. It's not a fair comparison and not an example of shrinkflation. Mars bars have dropped 20% in size since the 90s but still are 4% larger today then when they originally came out.
Neither are small boxes of cereal. When I worked at Wal-Mart 9 years ago those same thin boxes gave me grief when putting them out on the shelves.
i see milk tasting almost like water like skimmed milk, as well as some juices i used to be able to buy, fillings in sweets like crackers and wafers being almost as thin as paper or outright stopping being sold and replaced by cookies using drops for a filling, yogurt being replaced by "milk drink" (yogurt is thicker and slower to flow down, i can tell the difference, but the label also changes, idk the english term for "bebida láctea"), a lot of sweets and bags reducing from 800g down to 600g, down to 400g while keeping the same price, packaging turning opaque and non-transparent, potato chips and other salt foods being filled 1/5th, down from 1/3rd, even instant noodles going from 150g down to 80g in the past decade.
only things that aren't changed as much is what i know to be the very basic things that people in here uses and cooks every day, that being rice (5kg), beans (5 and 1kg), pasta (500g all variants), sugar and salt (1kg), etc.
mostly depends on the country you are in (i'm in Brazil), but the point is that it doesn't stop at the chocolate bars.
Milk is generally a regulated good and cannot be watered down like that. The same is true with all dairy. It's sad that you live in a country that does not offer such food protection.
Chips have always been filled like that. The nitrogen in the bag keeps the food fresh and acts as a way to keep them from damage via transport. Lays had reduced thier weight though, which ended up being 5 less chips per bag. The bags are still almost twice the size they were than 35 years ago.
In Canada the most popular brand of Ramen is Mr. Noodles. It's been 85g for the last 20 years, maybe more.
I get it's to shame the brands. But do the French not have unit prices? That's how I determine the better prices among different brands regardless of package size.
Unit prices shows you the cost per g or ml. This would show changes to historical pricing that you may not notice otherwise.
A product could still be cheapest per unit or in the middle but the increase wasn't noticed as they changed the packaging and volume of the product. Strange sizes also make comparison difficult without the actual ticket.
You mean if they display price per gram/kg/oz/ml etc?
It's irrelevant whether they do or not, that's not the point. They are comparing the price against the same product before , not against other similar products from other brands. It doesn't matter if Lipton Iced Tea is the cheapes iced tea brand per litre, it matters that they reduced the product size compared to what they used to
Right, but the before price is no longer available to me now. When I'm at the grocery store, I have to make decisions on today's prices. My choices are to buy brand A, B, or C. Or I can buy nothing. Or I can go to another store and hope for lower prices.
The company making the product likely has their own costs that have increased, such as increased labor and/or materials. In an inflationary environment, I cannot reasonably expect every company to maintain the same prices indefinitely, the company would then be forced to sell the product at a loss, which would lead to bankruptcy of the company.
Companies could increase prices, and/or decrease quantity arbitrarily to increase profits. But that's where competition with the other brands would keep them in check.
Unit prices are easy to remember when you buy a single product. I bet you know the price of gas per unit immediately. What was the price of Pepsi per liter today? What was the price of Coke per liter? There are dozens and dozens of soda products alone you would have to memorize. And that’s just soda.
I applaud a store using its data to communicate to customers how prices have changed. We should do this everywhere.
They'll probably only do it to pull a stunt like this to improve their negotiating power like they are here, because if they left it up all the time it would discourage sales.
That method is very useful but it wouldn't help you notice if every single company making a specific kind of product increased their prices the same amount (or reduced quantity)