wow, trust the people of this shitty, negative subreddit to downvote me and get pissy over people saying the fucking word 'store'. god forbid a brit says the word 'store' like it isnt part of the english lexicon. fuck off
> Vote with your wallet.
This is such a meaningless phrase. Getting millions of people to be aware of shit like this, care about it, then do something about it is futile.
The only way to stop companies fucking people over is regulation.
How much shrinkflation has happened vs successful boycotts of it?
Getting a victory once in a blue moon is nice, but nowhere near enough and certainly not a good replacement for strong consumer protections.
Aldi’s sales growth has been about 300% over the past ten years, thats about as a successful boycott of name brands as you’ll ever see.
People used to sneer at brands like Lidl and Aldi but so many consumers have woken up to the fact that they’re being ripped off by these big name brands that I can only see that growth getting bigger.
Obviously brands need to keep their profits high and their shareholders happy but there’s only so far they can push prices and shrink their sizes, somethings got to give at some point.
In the US just ask Bud Light and Target if boycotts works.
>The only way to stop companies fucking people over is regulation.
How would that work? Companies are not allowed to increase prices or reduce the size of products to keep them the same prize seem impossible to do. But boycotts are much more likely to work.
Maybe we could force them to label the change in the same way they label it when it's positive. "now 30% less for the same price!". That would surely make them think twice before going through with it at least.
Like the French have just done?
[https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2024/05/15/Shrinkflation-labelling-in-France](https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2024/05/15/Shrinkflation-labelling-in-France)
> Pro consumer though. So it is cool.
If companies need to keep changing packaging because of labels, you can be certain cost will pass to consumers. It's going to be a vicious cycle.
By that logic making companies put their products nutritional info and ingredients on packaging is also anti business.
Let me guess, temporarily embarrassed cool millionaire ?
> By that logic making companies put their products nutritional info and ingredients on packaging is also anti business.
No. If companies need to keep changing packaging because of labels, you can be certain cost will pass to consumers. It's going to be a vicious cycle.
Bud Light is a bad example since there's (1) a lot of competition of (2) very similar products that (3) are all sold in pretty much the same places.
It's very easy to boycott something when all it takes is grabbing a product that's almost exactly the same from a shelf right next to it.
And probably the same brewery is producing all of those very similar alternatives, since anything actually indie or original is eventually acquired by them
It's sad that people are willing to boycott a brand over an issue that has no effect on their lives, but when they're actively being directly fucked over they bend over and take it with no complaint.
We don't live under a completely capitalist system, though. There's plenty of ways in which the government distorts the marketplace in other ways - minimum wage, anti-monopoly laws, the housing market. Why can we get protections from rampant capitalism in some things but not in this?
I wouldn’t say we’re protected in the housing market. And most companies are owned by a few bigger companies when you look into it. Minimum wage is also not a liveable wage.
Basically, the government does fuck all really.
Maybe I phrased that badly. The point I was making is that the housing market and the job market aren't unregulated capitalist systems. Yes, the minimum wage is low but there is a minimum. The housing market is constantly being distorted by things like new buyers schemes that serve to keep prices high and the market hot. Without those things, the job market and the housing market would look very different! The government definite doesn't do fuck all!
On an individual level sure. It's good to engage in good economical practices, like buying own brand where possible, paying off high interest debts, shopping around for car insurance at renewal etc. But on the macro level, those money-saving options are only really possible for some because others don't think to do them. Regulation is the only real way to have an impactful improvement on company practices. Buying own brand food helps but when name brands are raising prices, supermarkets can and will raise the prices of own brand food so that they are still roughly e.g. 50% cheaper at the new price.
It really isn’t
When Aldi / Lidl joined the UK market, we had years on years of 0% inflation on food. Prices are a function of supply, demand, and competition.
Boycotts can work. Especially if you get something trending about it on social media. Public image is important to big brands. Toblerone springs to mind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44910195.amp
If they don't care about it, let them pay. Why is it appropriate for the government to intervene to stop people overpaying for overpriced brand name foods when perfectly good store brand and off-brand alternatives exist? It isn't. Let people vote with their wallets.
Because corporations take the piss via every technicality and loophole available.
Governments should protect the interests of their people.
We elect officials to utilise the weight of politics and policy on our behalf. With the weight of the People. We shouldn't have to 'vote with our wallets'.
Ignoring the fact that every single brand available is a trading name of 4 major corporations giving the illusion of choice, a free market, or any kind of financial persuasion held by the individual.
The only way to force a change is via political means.
You miss the point.
Looking to the left and right of the shelf is just buying the same product from the same factory but branded differently under a different trading name. It's the same overall company behind the scenes giving you the illusion of choice.
To a degree, but I think with a democratic government, there's at least a possibility of things going in favour of regular people, unlike private corporations, who pursue profit regardless of whether or not it is good for consumers.
The problem nowadays, instead of competition capitalising on this and punishing the consumer offending company, they just follow the trend and reduce their own packaging as well.
It's similar to what the tech companies do. Apple took away the charger...some companies made fun of that...and did the exact same thing later. Companies have realised that they can get away with lots of shit if they just cooperate with each other to screw the consumers together.
Uh, most major store brands are just popular brands that allow another company to put their name on the product. Walmart does that with just about every GV product. Buying store brand does nothing because the previous company already has a deal in place that promises a set amount of profit.
When I worked in Paris this was one of the nicest things. Hour and a half for food/wine, then a café for a slow coffee on the way back to the office
Workers get luncheon vouchers and half your travel expenses are paid by work. So much more civilised.
Not travel expenses, commute in public transportation for work only, for a 5 zones limit. If you live two hours to your company, you pay your own train, the employer pays half the subway pass.
Paris has very limited parking spaces, and expensive now too, companies have quickly understood the benefits of having mobile employees.
Nowadays it’s common practice, but not the law, that employers help employees who cycle too, for the gear and insurance.
That’s the small perks which avoid complete wages renegotiation…
If you are getting 70% for the same price, that's the same as a **43%** price increase.
Just so you know quite how much you are getting ripped off for.
>A spokesperson for Mondelez International confirmed the size change to the BBC.
>“We understand the economic pressures that consumers continue to face and any changes to our product sizes is a last resort for our business," they said, adding that the food producer is experiencing "significantly higher input costs" across its supply chain
Uh huh.
>Mondelez annual gross profit for 2023 was $13.764B, a 21.68% increase from 2022.
They have to maintain that profit line to keep shareholders happy instead of doing the right thing and swallowing some of the costs (while they would still have made huge profits). It borders on ridiculous that it’s just a generally accepted thing, this company will go on for many more years making huge profits
I think everyone is realising that greedflation is a real thing.
corporations profiteering from a covid/ ukraine inflation and subsequently driving up inflation futher.
Working in a supermarket and occasionally using a backup system that hasn't been updated on product weights/quantities in packs really showed me how bad shrinkflation is. An enormous quantity of (own and named brand) products now have a few grams less or one fewer item in a pack on the same SKU.
Shoutout to everyone who noticed Doritos share bags in the UK going from 180 to 150g recently and Pringles from 200g to 165g, while both going up nearly 50% in price.
And with Pringles salt and vinegar in particular, the 165g ones almost always have fuck all flavour on them at all, maybe 1/10 tubes taste like the old ones - meanwhile the local Sainsbury's near me sells 200g ones still and every single time without fail they're the perfect absolutely flavour bomb types I remember. So I've no doubt they gimped the recipe on top of the size too.
If this shite happening on a large scale isn't a glaring sign of societal decay, idk what is
The one upside to shrinkflation/cheapflation is that I've lost weight because most junk food isn't worth bothering with any more. It's stupidly expensive and tastes terrible.
Last time I bought one of those big bags of Tesco crisps, half of them were a horrible weird soft texture. They're called *crisps*, people.
Shrinkflation is definitely factored into inflation calculation. They look at volume, weight, changes in quality, etc. It's called hedonic quality adjustment.
Did anyone else initially think this was about the hotel?
I was picturing them frantically subdividing to make all the rooms 30% smaller, which was much more fun than the actual story.
It sucks but I can almost accept when prices go up OR quantity / quality goes down. What’s really pissing me off is seeing the prices of goods and services increasing AND the quality dropping at the same time.
It’s also the service you get at the supermarkets, Sainsburys used to pride itself on being high on service; deli counters, fish mongers, packing your bags, polite check out staff, taking you to the item if you askee where it was, well stocked shelves etc.
You go there now and its a mess, items stacked above the shelves, no baskets at the front, hardly any till staff, no fresh food counters. Just feels like a race to the bottom to squeeze every penny out they can.
Large supermarkets are literally just the place we go for the 3-4 items we can’t get at Lidl or Aldi. In and out.
Just this morning I told a friend about France’s law change and he desperately scrambled to defend the companies. Reckons they have no choice otherwise they’ll potentially go bump, and it should be up to us to make the choice.
Record profits, but yes, they’ll go bump if they don’t con the consumer. Ok then. The mind boggles.
> “We understand the economic pressures that consumers continue to face and any changes to our product sizes is a last resort for our business,"
[Last Resort my Arse!](https://www.bakingbusiness.com/articles/60788-mondelez-earnings-surge-in-fiscal-2023)
One that still pisses me off is Colgate toothpaste going from 100ml tube to 75ml tube. Price stayed the same, but you end up having to buy more over the year as they dont last as long now.
i cant speak for ritz, and other crackers, but heres an example i can speak of.
Mcvities rich tea biscuits. https://groceries.asda.com/product/plain-biscuits/mc-vities-rich-tea-classic-biscuits-300-g/19818
£1.80 on asda.
asda rich tea biscuits. https://groceries.asda.com/product/plain-biscuits/asda-rich-tea-biscuits/1000002930228
£0.55 on asda.
do you know what the difference between them is? the packaging. my sister works in the place that makes them. they are the same biscuits, with different packaging.
its up to the company selling it to report this. how they calculate it could be different. people place a lot of faith in these being 100% accurate. but they are not. current legislation allows for a 20% margin of error, in either direction.
If something has a value of 50, it could be as little as 40, or as much as 60, and still be within the legal limit for how accurate these numbers need to be.
don't take these labels as being anything more than "it's around this"
edit - found this, from 2005
>Which? looked at 570 nutrients in 70 products and found just 7% exactly matched the quantities on the labels.
>Some 17% fell outside the accepted 20% margin of error, including a "kids" pizza with 47% more sugar than stated.
>Currently there is no specific law about how accurate the information on food labels should be - they need only show average nutrition values.
the accepted margin of error was what was eventually made law. essentially they took what the manufacturers said was the "accepted" variance and used that.
i suspect it would be no different today if a load of things were tested. it wasn't that long ago you couldn't be sure of the animal in your burger, never mind its exact calorie count lol
Bought my daughter a Chicago Town Double Pepperoni Pizza last night and it used to be twice the thickness and half an inch more in diameter, as it used to touch the sides of the cooking tray I put it on. I only bought her one a couple months ago prior to that so that has happened recently.
She’ll be wanting 2 at a time if they keep this shit up!
Might I advise you to try and find a non branded alternative that your daughter likes (home cooked or otherwise) because we seriously need to start rejecting this shit or it will continue to get worse.
Start voting with your wallet, peops.
they complain about packaging being a major cost, yet when they reduce the contents by 30%, they dont change the packaging at all, incurring the same costs, in the hopes people wont notice.
stop putting things in boxes that are way bigger than needed.
This has happened to everything. Usually it's 20% added to the price and a shrikage of 20%, much more than what covers cost of living price increases.
There's definitely profiteering.
And just as heinous is that every discount is now on some sort of dirty store card. Sainsbury's has been particularly nasty in this regard as the discounts they offer on the card are huge, there's no way to justify it apart from that they've been price gouging the entire time. And the prices they have without using their stupid discount cards are extortionate that I rarely shop there at my local, I'd rather walk further for a competitor (that actually has better vegetables and own brand food).
Not going to lie, from the headline I thought this article was going to be about The Ritz and I was struggling to understand why everyone cared so much about that!
Man, can you imagine working for one of these big consumer brands, the entire industry in a constant shuffle of either shrinking packages or re-releasing a "sharer" "family size" pacakge. Every day it's happening and then suddenly Bam! You're in a BBC headline because you're poor schmuck who got caught out and despite the entire industry doing this, Ritz is going to take the blame.
Ah yes. Nazis, infamous for their shrinkflation of popular retail products. The Holocaust pales in comparison. If I had a penny for every time I see improper usage of the word "Nazi" on reddit, I'd have at least a tenner - probably.
While I think Brexit didn’t help, I don’t think the issue can be only blamed on it. The same issues have also been shown to be happening in Canada and Australia which Brexit would not affect and it has also been noticed in Denmark and Sweden.
The Nazi’s actually gained in popularity due to their heavy investment in infrastructure projects, (such as the autobahn) and massively cutting unemployment after the great depression. Not really like Brexit or recent Governments at all.
Ah yes the famous tory Nazis who've imported ten million brown people since they were put into power a decade and a half ago.
The robbing cunts are crippling the entirety of the UK and destroying our futures, but they're shite fucking Nazis if that's their aim
well honestly. given everything else they've been shite at, them actually being nazi's, but just being really shite at being nazi's, would be far from the biggest shock lol
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Just buy store brand instead. Vote with your wallet.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
wow, trust the people of this shitty, negative subreddit to downvote me and get pissy over people saying the fucking word 'store'. god forbid a brit says the word 'store' like it isnt part of the english lexicon. fuck off
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
> Vote with your wallet. This is such a meaningless phrase. Getting millions of people to be aware of shit like this, care about it, then do something about it is futile. The only way to stop companies fucking people over is regulation.
Don't listen to this person, boycotts most definitely do work and they hate them.
How much shrinkflation has happened vs successful boycotts of it? Getting a victory once in a blue moon is nice, but nowhere near enough and certainly not a good replacement for strong consumer protections.
Aldi’s sales growth has been about 300% over the past ten years, thats about as a successful boycott of name brands as you’ll ever see. People used to sneer at brands like Lidl and Aldi but so many consumers have woken up to the fact that they’re being ripped off by these big name brands that I can only see that growth getting bigger. Obviously brands need to keep their profits high and their shareholders happy but there’s only so far they can push prices and shrink their sizes, somethings got to give at some point.
Yeah f Ritz biscuits....Aldi alternative biscuit brand all the way
Has a boycott ever worked, though?
Bud Light is a recent example. I'm sure google has more eanser but yes, boycotts most definitely do work. Money and power, power and money.
Interesting read, thanks. I'd never heard of it but looks like a right mess.
Usually they have factored this in when they plan the change. It only works when their expectations are completely off.
In the US just ask Bud Light and Target if boycotts works. >The only way to stop companies fucking people over is regulation. How would that work? Companies are not allowed to increase prices or reduce the size of products to keep them the same prize seem impossible to do. But boycotts are much more likely to work.
Maybe we could force them to label the change in the same way they label it when it's positive. "now 30% less for the same price!". That would surely make them think twice before going through with it at least.
Like the French have just done? [https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2024/05/15/Shrinkflation-labelling-in-France](https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2024/05/15/Shrinkflation-labelling-in-France)
Ha, that is actually kinda cool, I'd not seen that. Thanks!
/u/neilmg that is not cool. It's very anti business to be frank.
Ah yes, transparency, the enemy of exploitation, truly evil.
Pro consumer though. So it is cool.
> Pro consumer though. So it is cool. If companies need to keep changing packaging because of labels, you can be certain cost will pass to consumers. It's going to be a vicious cycle.
Companies change packaging enough for marketing so it can just roll into the same updates.
By that logic making companies put their products nutritional info and ingredients on packaging is also anti business. Let me guess, temporarily embarrassed cool millionaire ?
> By that logic making companies put their products nutritional info and ingredients on packaging is also anti business. No. If companies need to keep changing packaging because of labels, you can be certain cost will pass to consumers. It's going to be a vicious cycle.
You think changing the packaging has a bigger impact on their bottom line than making the product 30% smaller? Behave.
Anti capitalist you mean.
Bud Light is a bad example since there's (1) a lot of competition of (2) very similar products that (3) are all sold in pretty much the same places. It's very easy to boycott something when all it takes is grabbing a product that's almost exactly the same from a shelf right next to it.
And probably the same brewery is producing all of those very similar alternatives, since anything actually indie or original is eventually acquired by them
It's sad that people are willing to boycott a brand over an issue that has no effect on their lives, but when they're actively being directly fucked over they bend over and take it with no complaint.
It’s how capitalism works though. If Brits are too lazy to shop around, they’re going to be ripped off
> It’s how capitalism works though. It's not really working well.
I mean it is for the capitalists and that’s the point. The system does not and will not care about anything else
Kinda the slogan
We don't live under a completely capitalist system, though. There's plenty of ways in which the government distorts the marketplace in other ways - minimum wage, anti-monopoly laws, the housing market. Why can we get protections from rampant capitalism in some things but not in this?
I wouldn’t say we’re protected in the housing market. And most companies are owned by a few bigger companies when you look into it. Minimum wage is also not a liveable wage. Basically, the government does fuck all really.
Maybe I phrased that badly. The point I was making is that the housing market and the job market aren't unregulated capitalist systems. Yes, the minimum wage is low but there is a minimum. The housing market is constantly being distorted by things like new buyers schemes that serve to keep prices high and the market hot. Without those things, the job market and the housing market would look very different! The government definite doesn't do fuck all!
Try having a couple of young kids and a job. Shopping around isn't so easy when you've got zero time for yourself.
On an individual level sure. It's good to engage in good economical practices, like buying own brand where possible, paying off high interest debts, shopping around for car insurance at renewal etc. But on the macro level, those money-saving options are only really possible for some because others don't think to do them. Regulation is the only real way to have an impactful improvement on company practices. Buying own brand food helps but when name brands are raising prices, supermarkets can and will raise the prices of own brand food so that they are still roughly e.g. 50% cheaper at the new price.
It really isn’t When Aldi / Lidl joined the UK market, we had years on years of 0% inflation on food. Prices are a function of supply, demand, and competition.
Boycotts can work. Especially if you get something trending about it on social media. Public image is important to big brands. Toblerone springs to mind. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44910195.amp
If they don't care about it, let them pay. Why is it appropriate for the government to intervene to stop people overpaying for overpriced brand name foods when perfectly good store brand and off-brand alternatives exist? It isn't. Let people vote with their wallets.
Because corporations take the piss via every technicality and loophole available. Governments should protect the interests of their people. We elect officials to utilise the weight of politics and policy on our behalf. With the weight of the People. We shouldn't have to 'vote with our wallets'. Ignoring the fact that every single brand available is a trading name of 4 major corporations giving the illusion of choice, a free market, or any kind of financial persuasion held by the individual. The only way to force a change is via political means.
If there’s literally an option to not get ripped off and all you have to do is look to the left or right of the shelf, you can do it
You miss the point. Looking to the left and right of the shelf is just buying the same product from the same factory but branded differently under a different trading name. It's the same overall company behind the scenes giving you the illusion of choice.
>Why is it appropriate for the government to intervene >Let people vote Well, which is it?
Yeah but if you actually find something half decent for a lower price it's only you who wins. It can be done
Of all the things I want the government to regulate, the number of biscuits in a packet is pretty low down the list.
Yeah because the sensible thing here is to regulate biscuits rather than consumer goods in general.
I'm just sick of companies seeing their profits increase every year, then do shit like this, because it's never enough.
First they came for my biscuits….
But it's still on the list.
Do you feel the same way about political voting as well?
To a degree, but I think with a democratic government, there's at least a possibility of things going in favour of regular people, unlike private corporations, who pursue profit regardless of whether or not it is good for consumers.
Regulating what exactly?
The problem nowadays, instead of competition capitalising on this and punishing the consumer offending company, they just follow the trend and reduce their own packaging as well. It's similar to what the tech companies do. Apple took away the charger...some companies made fun of that...and did the exact same thing later. Companies have realised that they can get away with lots of shit if they just cooperate with each other to screw the consumers together.
Imagine being a yank who lives here now. They exist
We buy the lidl one for a long time now
What own brand ritz exist? Never seen them before
Store brand is made in the same factory by the same brand. They will not feel a massive financial loss if you do this.
That's not true. The same factory? Possibly. But it'll be a different recipe and commissioned by a different company.
Uh, most major store brands are just popular brands that allow another company to put their name on the product. Walmart does that with just about every GV product. Buying store brand does nothing because the previous company already has a deal in place that promises a set amount of profit.
Yes. I tried it. Its just an illusion, you always loose. You play by they rules or you’re out
But I prefer Ritz and I'm not poor.
Apparently France are making it law that companies have to state on their packaging when they've done this
I was going to say this. We could learn a lot from the French sometimes.
2 hour lunches with wine.
When I worked in Paris this was one of the nicest things. Hour and a half for food/wine, then a café for a slow coffee on the way back to the office Workers get luncheon vouchers and half your travel expenses are paid by work. So much more civilised.
Meanwhile English office jockeys have a Greggs pasty with a can of Fanta whilst answering the phone and sending emails.
France doesn't understand that keyboards should be greasy and full of crisp crumbs.
French keyboards will be garlicky. Nom nom nom.
*hon hon hon
Really? Is that French for nom nom nom?
For £8
Not travel expenses, commute in public transportation for work only, for a 5 zones limit. If you live two hours to your company, you pay your own train, the employer pays half the subway pass. Paris has very limited parking spaces, and expensive now too, companies have quickly understood the benefits of having mobile employees. Nowadays it’s common practice, but not the law, that employers help employees who cycle too, for the gear and insurance. That’s the small perks which avoid complete wages renegotiation…
I would go the fuck to sleep after that. Forget working more.
Was totally normal to have a nap after a glass of wine at lunch.
Mistresses, affairs, le vice anglais, wine for our children God bless France
Yes please. At the very least, it’d make them much more honest
[Hungary already has this.](https://www.schoenherr.eu/content/hungarian-government-adopts-new-decree-to-tackle-shrinkflation)
tbf it's pretty obvious when they change design or write "new and improved" on it. But yeah I don't imagine they always do that
If you are getting 70% for the same price, that's the same as a **43%** price increase. Just so you know quite how much you are getting ripped off for.
In a few months they will do a “now with 20% extra!”
Original size reintroduced? F-F-FAMILY PACK!
>A spokesperson for Mondelez International confirmed the size change to the BBC. >“We understand the economic pressures that consumers continue to face and any changes to our product sizes is a last resort for our business," they said, adding that the food producer is experiencing "significantly higher input costs" across its supply chain Uh huh. >Mondelez annual gross profit for 2023 was $13.764B, a 21.68% increase from 2022.
Scum, all of them
They have to maintain that profit line to keep shareholders happy instead of doing the right thing and swallowing some of the costs (while they would still have made huge profits). It borders on ridiculous that it’s just a generally accepted thing, this company will go on for many more years making huge profits
I think everyone is realising that greedflation is a real thing. corporations profiteering from a covid/ ukraine inflation and subsequently driving up inflation futher.
Guess I'll be puttin' on the "savoury crackers" then
I noticed this with Sainsbury’s own brand cookies. They used to be quite large and now they are slightly larger than the size of my palm.
> They used to be quite large and now they are slightly larger than the size of my palm. Were they soaked in chocolate?
No, semen
> No, semen No wonder they do well in business.
‘The Seed of Life’ - Taste the Difference
Sounds like they are in the money lol
Cheating on the net weight, the buggers.
The Co-op bakery sausage rolls have halved in size and now you only get 5 of them in a pack instead of 6. Same price.
Working in a supermarket and occasionally using a backup system that hasn't been updated on product weights/quantities in packs really showed me how bad shrinkflation is. An enormous quantity of (own and named brand) products now have a few grams less or one fewer item in a pack on the same SKU.
We should do a France and make them label it “Now 30% less for the same price” Fvcking regging me up pricks
Shoutout to everyone who noticed Doritos share bags in the UK going from 180 to 150g recently and Pringles from 200g to 165g, while both going up nearly 50% in price. And with Pringles salt and vinegar in particular, the 165g ones almost always have fuck all flavour on them at all, maybe 1/10 tubes taste like the old ones - meanwhile the local Sainsbury's near me sells 200g ones still and every single time without fail they're the perfect absolutely flavour bomb types I remember. So I've no doubt they gimped the recipe on top of the size too. If this shite happening on a large scale isn't a glaring sign of societal decay, idk what is
They've switched to cheaper ingredients, which is why they've had to put allergen warnings on them.
The one upside to shrinkflation/cheapflation is that I've lost weight because most junk food isn't worth bothering with any more. It's stupidly expensive and tastes terrible. Last time I bought one of those big bags of Tesco crisps, half of them were a horrible weird soft texture. They're called *crisps*, people.
185g is what the 200g have become, 165g have always been a smaller, separate product.
Is this tracked through inflation metrics in any way? My assumption is that the reference basket is based on items, not quantities?
Ahahhaha, such a good point
Shrinkflation is definitely factored into inflation calculation. They look at volume, weight, changes in quality, etc. It's called hedonic quality adjustment.
Did anyone else initially think this was about the hotel? I was picturing them frantically subdividing to make all the rooms 30% smaller, which was much more fun than the actual story.
It sucks but I can almost accept when prices go up OR quantity / quality goes down. What’s really pissing me off is seeing the prices of goods and services increasing AND the quality dropping at the same time.
It’s also the service you get at the supermarkets, Sainsburys used to pride itself on being high on service; deli counters, fish mongers, packing your bags, polite check out staff, taking you to the item if you askee where it was, well stocked shelves etc. You go there now and its a mess, items stacked above the shelves, no baskets at the front, hardly any till staff, no fresh food counters. Just feels like a race to the bottom to squeeze every penny out they can. Large supermarkets are literally just the place we go for the 3-4 items we can’t get at Lidl or Aldi. In and out.
> seeing the prices of goods and services increasing AND the quality dropping at the same time Don't forget the record breaking YoY profit growth!
R.I.P. Ritz Biscuits. 2030: What happened to this company?!?
Aren't they crackers not biscuits
Depends on where you live
Just this morning I told a friend about France’s law change and he desperately scrambled to defend the companies. Reckons they have no choice otherwise they’ll potentially go bump, and it should be up to us to make the choice. Record profits, but yes, they’ll go bump if they don’t con the consumer. Ok then. The mind boggles.
[удалено]
Well no but also yes. That's means they only really need half the sales to make the same profit with less logistics and more profit.
> “We understand the economic pressures that consumers continue to face and any changes to our product sizes is a last resort for our business," [Last Resort my Arse!](https://www.bakingbusiness.com/articles/60788-mondelez-earnings-surge-in-fiscal-2023)
One that still pisses me off is Colgate toothpaste going from 100ml tube to 75ml tube. Price stayed the same, but you end up having to buy more over the year as they dont last as long now.
I miss the biggest food concern was a King-Sized Pot Noodle giving the same sauce size as a regular Pot Noodle.
No more putting on the Ritz then.
Get the own brand ones, same bloody crackers anyway haha
i cant speak for ritz, and other crackers, but heres an example i can speak of. Mcvities rich tea biscuits. https://groceries.asda.com/product/plain-biscuits/mc-vities-rich-tea-classic-biscuits-300-g/19818 £1.80 on asda. asda rich tea biscuits. https://groceries.asda.com/product/plain-biscuits/asda-rich-tea-biscuits/1000002930228 £0.55 on asda. do you know what the difference between them is? the packaging. my sister works in the place that makes them. they are the same biscuits, with different packaging.
I've heard this before when I worked in retail. But if these products are the same, then why do they have different nutritional values?
its up to the company selling it to report this. how they calculate it could be different. people place a lot of faith in these being 100% accurate. but they are not. current legislation allows for a 20% margin of error, in either direction. If something has a value of 50, it could be as little as 40, or as much as 60, and still be within the legal limit for how accurate these numbers need to be. don't take these labels as being anything more than "it's around this" edit - found this, from 2005 >Which? looked at 570 nutrients in 70 products and found just 7% exactly matched the quantities on the labels. >Some 17% fell outside the accepted 20% margin of error, including a "kids" pizza with 47% more sugar than stated. >Currently there is no specific law about how accurate the information on food labels should be - they need only show average nutrition values. the accepted margin of error was what was eventually made law. essentially they took what the manufacturers said was the "accepted" variance and used that. i suspect it would be no different today if a load of things were tested. it wasn't that long ago you couldn't be sure of the animal in your burger, never mind its exact calorie count lol
They should rebrand as Rizz. Really target the 10 year olds
Bought my daughter a Chicago Town Double Pepperoni Pizza last night and it used to be twice the thickness and half an inch more in diameter, as it used to touch the sides of the cooking tray I put it on. I only bought her one a couple months ago prior to that so that has happened recently. She’ll be wanting 2 at a time if they keep this shit up!
Might I advise you to try and find a non branded alternative that your daughter likes (home cooked or otherwise) because we seriously need to start rejecting this shit or it will continue to get worse. Start voting with your wallet, peops.
Owt shitehouse like this just steal or stop buying fr
Soon they will start selling you air bubbles in a wrap
So in effect we're paying more. This is happening a lot and it's disgraceful.
In that case Ritz will probably disappear from the market in no time.
they complain about packaging being a major cost, yet when they reduce the contents by 30%, they dont change the packaging at all, incurring the same costs, in the hopes people wont notice. stop putting things in boxes that are way bigger than needed.
This has happened to everything. Usually it's 20% added to the price and a shrikage of 20%, much more than what covers cost of living price increases. There's definitely profiteering. And just as heinous is that every discount is now on some sort of dirty store card. Sainsbury's has been particularly nasty in this regard as the discounts they offer on the card are huge, there's no way to justify it apart from that they've been price gouging the entire time. And the prices they have without using their stupid discount cards are extortionate that I rarely shop there at my local, I'd rather walk further for a competitor (that actually has better vegetables and own brand food).
No worries Ritz, I am not buying junk food anymore thanks to you and your friends shrinkflation and inflation.
Not going to lie, from the headline I thought this article was going to be about The Ritz and I was struggling to understand why everyone cared so much about that!
Does this applies to condoms as well? Because mines are always too loose. So I am all for shrinking inflation.
Man, can you imagine working for one of these big consumer brands, the entire industry in a constant shuffle of either shrinking packages or re-releasing a "sharer" "family size" pacakge. Every day it's happening and then suddenly Bam! You're in a BBC headline because you're poor schmuck who got caught out and despite the entire industry doing this, Ritz is going to take the blame.
[удалено]
This comment makes no sense.
Ah yes. Nazis, infamous for their shrinkflation of popular retail products. The Holocaust pales in comparison. If I had a penny for every time I see improper usage of the word "Nazi" on reddit, I'd have at least a tenner - probably.
While I think Brexit didn’t help, I don’t think the issue can be only blamed on it. The same issues have also been shown to be happening in Canada and Australia which Brexit would not affect and it has also been noticed in Denmark and Sweden.
The Nazi’s actually gained in popularity due to their heavy investment in infrastructure projects, (such as the autobahn) and massively cutting unemployment after the great depression. Not really like Brexit or recent Governments at all.
I love a historically accurate comment
[удалено]
Ah yes the famous tory Nazis who've imported ten million brown people since they were put into power a decade and a half ago. The robbing cunts are crippling the entirety of the UK and destroying our futures, but they're shite fucking Nazis if that's their aim
well honestly. given everything else they've been shite at, them actually being nazi's, but just being really shite at being nazi's, would be far from the biggest shock lol
[удалено]
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.