Shrinkflation: Shoppers left increasingly confused at best and misled at worst, as more firms make products smaller, writes conor_pope
“I think it’s getting worse,” says consumer advocate Dermott Jewell. “And the reason it’s getting worse is that businesses are doing anything to not announce a price increase and draw attention to themselves. I am not saying they’re unjustified, but shrinkflation facilitates a lack of transparency around pricing and the problems have been escalating.”
He says that he accepts retailers and producers are under pressure. “I won’t say for a moment that I don’t understand it and it is always pointed out that humans don’t like price increases and they prefer this but there needs to be a clear conversation with a customer. If you’re loyal to them and you want them to be loyal to you. You’ve got to tell them what you’re doing. And that has not been happening.
Prof Morgenroth also points to the many people out there who have been hit hard by the cost of living crisis and may benefit from a slightly smaller product size rather than a price hike that puts something out of reach in terms of affordability. He says that another – less discussed and harder to detect – approach adopted by manufacturers is the swapping out of more expensive ingredients for cheaper ones.
He points to the practice among some meat producers of artificially inflating the size of their products by adding more salt and water. “You know salt is cheaper than pork and water is cheaper than pork so you throw a load of salt on stuff and then inject it with water and you have people effectively paying for water at the price of pork. I think manufacturers have spent a lot of time figuring out how they can make their products cheaper to make and that is what they would call that innovation.
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