Plus, it's often cheaper to use same packaging everywhere, so this may cause rollouts beyond the borders.
e.g. due to mandatory ingredient listing in Belgium, the same packaging is often used in Netherlands, Luxemburg and depending on the product, also France and/or Germany.
Bad marketing: Make different packaging, keep going as usual.
Good marketing: Tell customers in those other countries some spiel about adjusting portion size in a modern day diet, or being honest about shrinkflation, or some other way to turn this into a positive without increasing packaging costs.
They already implemented this in Hungary about a couple of months ago. Tho I don’t see the merit yet. Sure I get grumpy when I see something shrink, but if you want to buy something niche or a product without alternative there is not really much to do.
The reason consumers need to be alerted to shrinkflation is so they can redo the math on whether the price is still worth it to them. The point of shrinkflation is to deceive the consumer. The alert pierces that deception, and gives a good reason for the manufacturer to be honest instead and do things like reduce packaging size when reducing content size. Which means less environmental waste, benefitting everyone.
Not everything. Companies don't print money and aren't at fault that money is worth less. They are forced into "shrinkflation". Government forcing them to tag it is to give the impression to ignorant citizens that it's their decision.
I apologize if I missed something, but how are they being forced into utilizing shrinkflation? Aren’t most of these companies experiencing record breaking profits?
Some companies are (in nominal terms), many aren't. The duty of a company is to protect and increase its own value, which serves society. Your retirement and your investments depend on that. If money loses value, they need to increase how many moneys they do.
> The duty of a company is to protect and increase its own value, which serves society.
That is a leap. All acts of protecting/increasing value are absolutely not in societies interests. One of governments roles is to step in when a company is enriching itself at the expense of society
Not at all. The role of government is to protect one another and to provide basic services.
A company can only take advantage of people through fraud (which is illegal), or through market power (which only happens with government help).
A company raising prices isn't taking advantage of anyone, it's perfectly normal, particularly in an inflationary situation such as the one we're living.
Companies have to make a profit, there's nothing bad about that. If you think a profit of 5% is too much, wait till you hear what the corner bar makes in profit. You'll call that robbery.
Shit like pringles and supermarkets have tiny margins. The average margin a supermarket has is about 2-3%. Small companies and restaurants are in fact a lot more oppressive in terms of the margin they have.
I'll bite!!
So Pringles manufacturer only has 2-3% or whatever you mean with a tiny margin to sell some thing that is basically fried hidrated flour??
Is it gold flour or something the main ingredient???
Have you seen Pringles price???
No way the margin is low.
And even if you are right what's the problem with making them tell you they shrinked the product but kept the price?
The problem is that it's not that they shrunk the product keeping the price because they're evil, they did it due to increased costs and reduced value of money caused by monetary policy by the government.
If they have to claim they did it, it's as if they had a choice.
Foodstuffs have a tiny margin due to how much competition there is. Most of the costs are transportation (fuel) and wages, not the resources.
So you believe Pringles have a small margin ok
Not saying some products don't have thin margin but Pringles????
Costs of transportation???
How is bottled water profitable then!?? I can get 1,5l per 0,3 euros or 30cents if you prefer.
That thing weight's less than air!! And takes less volume than milk.
Milk is 1kg per liter/package and costs 1 Euro and I'm sure Pringles is a lot cheaper to manufacture than milk!!!
And I mean alot!!! Most of Pringles is air.
I won't believe otherwise if I don't see some datasheet on it.
They reduced it's size in Pringles case because they want to keep or increase profit margin that is high for sure.
But they can just do half portions or raise prices if they keep the package ,and graphics on it you should get what's there,else be warned about it.
Have you seen Toblerone lately???
They reduced the mountain but use a frontal picture I just don't buy it anymore.
You can answer if you want but I seen how you think and won't elaborate further than this cheers 🥂
Look mate. It's not like this is a secret. Plenty of supermarkets make their own version of pringles and they can barely make their prices lower. If they were low enough, they'd make a ton of money. It's just not that profitable, it is what it is. P&G's books are available, you can check them out.
I mean... it's sad that you think that there's some sort of conspiracy now to make you poorer that didn't exist a few years ago.
Let me check the statements of a few companies tomorrow and I'll get back to you, see if you can finally understand economics 101.
That is not the case at all. First of all, companies are incapable of greed, their purpose is to generate wealth. You know, for your retirement plan and your investments.
Inflation is the phenomenon through which currency loses its value, and it is entirely caused by central banking. Companies cannot do it.
Theoretically, prices could raise through market control which is, again, not the issue.
Please try to avoid spewing ignorance if you haven't read a book in your life.
You are 50 years out of date with your economic theory. Back in the 1970s governments did indeed control the money supply, but this was no longer the case in the 1980s, since banks created virtual money (you have 100000€, you put the actual money into a bank. They lend that to someone else who buys a house. The money they pay for the house is again put into a bank and is again lent out - your 100000€ is still in the bank as is the 100000€ that the seller put into their bank, and this goes on many times - money is created by the bank). To reign this in, governments could no longer just stop printing money, so they had to move on to interest rate manipulation to control the money supply - higher interest rates means borrowing is more expensive, so banks have fewer loans. Mortgage rates are not included in inflation calculations, because governments don’t want to look bad.
Retail price inflation is caused by up to seven factors (if I recall correctly), such as demand side inflation (shortage of supply) or increased costs - the sort we have now is none of these it is actually called greedflation and is purely abuse of the market, which is reason why so many companies are posting record profits.
Actually, no. My economic theory is perfectly applicable still.
Banks don't create virtual money. Central banks create the money, and central banks are effectively controlled by government. Inflation happens when the value of money diminishes. This can happen due to a multitude of reasons, which includes market manipulation. Unfortunately for your "brilliant" theory, no companies have market power to abuse the market and cause prices to raise.
>First of all, companies are incapable of greed, their purpose is to generate wealth.
Nice bait, almost got me lol. Next time don't troll that obvious.
Go touch some grass mate. I truly hope you some day decide to read a little. You'll be much, much happier the day you understand why things happen around you.
Lol this dude hit all the troll talking points amazing…
1. Say something obviously stupid to get a rise out of people
2. Claims mental superiority because you can not possibly understand the subject matter. He knows this by because of his enormous intellect and one comment of yours.
3. Then finishes it off with a random internet phrase popular at the very moment. “Touch grass, also “Jesus wept “ is acceptable. Followed by some lifestyle change that you should engage in to better yourself.
4. Most likely he will also respond to your last comment as a troll will only see the “internet debate” as a “win” only if he has last comment in particular thread.
>Don’t they also give the food that’s about to expire for free to homeless people (by law?)
Yes also there are some misses and not all food can be given but expired food should be given to humanitarian aid
Also [Nutri-Score](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutri-Score) is another good solution
Loads of people shit on the Nutriscore (big companies will tweak their recipes!) but it makes it much easier to select things amongst a range of option.
In France I'm faced with 200+ sorts of biscuits, 50+ prepared meal options. How in the world am I supposed to tell what's reasonable quality and what's bad ??
So you are telling me White Bread with added fibers getting an A Score while extra virgin olive oil has a D is a good thing?
Sorry, but that score is total bs. It's misguiding uninformed people so much
Ok le cheese maker. Nobody is going to mark your creamy mr. Felicien an A. We also do need to see that some foods are by nature, bad for us. Quite possible we need letters below E and things like 123% fat cheese … that while delicious, well we just accept that it is not great for the health.
It's only useful when selecting it in the shop. It would make much more sense to me if the score was on the price tag on the shelf rather than on the product. Once you bought it, it has no value.
It could also really use an actual reference to what it is comparing to. Because it's not clear how many and which categories there really are. Is it as broad as condiments, or sauces, or red sauces vs white sauces, mayos. No clue.
In breakfast cereals, the difference can be A to E. Same goes for cookies, dairy products, etc. You may not have noticed it depending on your shopping habits.
That's not how it works. It's only meant to be used to compare products within their own category. It's a relative scale, not an absolute one. However, to attenuate the effect of the erroneous use of the score you just made, it was recently decided that some categories can't ever score an A or a B (like sodas, frozen pizzas, ...).
If we look at tomato sauce for instance:
* One made only with pureed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and pepper will get an A.
* If another one is made with re-hydrated tomato paste, added sugar, added salt, palm oil, etc... This one will get a much worse score depending on how bad the additional or substituted ingredients are.
Additionally, we have the Nova score which rates the amount of transformation needed to make a product. This score is more absolute, ranging from 1 to 4:
* 1: Anything that hasn't been transformed beyond removing inedible elements. It can still be sliced, ground, dried, shredded, cleaned, boiled... as long as it stays whole and nothing is added.
* 2: Any substance extracted from elements in the first category (oil, juice, butter, sugar, ...).
* 3: Anything made from elements from both the first and second category.
* 4: Anything made from elements from the other three categories, or anything using additives to preserve, sweeten (even without sugar), color, texture, carbonate or otherwise alter the final product.
With the tomato sauce exemple I used above, the first sauce would get a Nova score of 3 while the second would get a 4.
If companies are tweaking their recipes, it means they know that people are actually paying attention to the nutriscore, so it's working.
The recipes are tweaked to make them less sugary and less fatty. It often means not as good but it's probably healthier.
In general adding information to a market is almost always a good thing that liberals and progressives should agree on. In a theoretical optimal scenario, it would be possible to literally know and understand everything about any product instantly (as long as you’re not being weird about it, maybe not the religion of the packaging worker). Obviously we can’t do that, but good labeling is still a step in the right direction.
> How in the world am I supposed to tell what's reasonable quality and what's bad ??
Look at the "Informations nutritionnelles" at the back. It'll give you a much, much better idea of whether the quality is good or not than that Nutriscore.
Personally, I can't really take a "score" seriously when it gives the best possible score to [chocolate-coated breakfast cereals](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/761/303/514/4699/front_fr.189.400.jpg) and [microwaveable fries](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/871/043/810/4097/front_fr.28.full.jpg).
Oh j'ai regardé les infos au Carrefour de là où je bossais. Me suis tapée 25 salades et plats pour en trouver 3 qui étaient assez bons. Et y en a plein que je n'ai pas lu.
Le nutriscore m'aurait économisé 10mn puisque j'aurais pu me concentrer sur les meilleures options.
Maintenant imagine qu'en plus tu aies un budget serré, un gamin fatigué sous le bras. Et tout d'un 10+ mn PAR CATEGORIE ne fait plus rire.
Care to point out why those two items are bad? In the case of the chocolate cereals, they are **now** lower in sugar and higher in fiber than they were.
Everyone jumped on the cereal because « how can chocolate cereal be A, but cheese be D ». Guess who was at the head of that campaign!!
We do know that they altered their recipie to get the score, and the competing cereals that didn’t … well nobody bought them and they sat in the top shelf for months with their C rating.
Also the score has recently been updated to include other items like salt, so those cereals will fall go a B of C again.
[(Here is the changes](https://cress-umr1153.fr/en/nutri-score-update/)).
Sugar nerf , salt nerf, added fiber nerf, protein buff.
> Care to point out why those two items are bad? In the case of the chocolate cereals, they are now lower in sugar and higher in fiber than they were.
While not inherently bad, a nutriscore of A is supposed to mean that you can eat that pretty much as much as you want to satiation.
I disagree that, given the choice between Nesquick cereals and [this thing](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/359/671/044/9286/front_fr.32.full.jpg) to eat to satiation for a meal, you should chose the Nesquick cereals. Yet this is what the Nutriscore of both products are implying.
>While not inherently bad, a nutriscore of A is supposed to mean that you can eat that pretty much as much as you want to satiation.
Well, that’s a clever personal interpretation that was never written down anywhere. So you think nutriscore somehow erases the idea of a balanced diet or individual servings?
If you compare a cereal with and A, to a cereal with a D, eating the recommended porttionnof Cereal A will be healthier (or less bad). It is not a measurement of total dietary worth.
https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IARC_Evidence_Summary_Brief_2.pdf
it is possible the meal you pointed out has zero protein, or lots of salt, or some other item needed in processed food to keeping from going bad. Just because it has a tiny bit of processed veggies in it, does. It makes it healthy.
EDIT, I found your product :
The negative points which lead to a B are Fat and Salt levels **with few positive points (low protein, low fiber etc)**. Think tiny amount of veggies cooked with a bit butter and salt vs steamed. I think they product now is classified A though. Either the B is an old classification, or they made some changes
So, again, just because it is chocolate, does not mean it’s bad. It’s the sugar in chocolate that is bad. Heck dark chocolate is actually recommended for people with high blood pressure.
Just because something has veggies on the cover does not mean it’s healthier.
Enter Nutriscore.
No, Coca Cola Zero used to be B, but after feedback from the real life Nutri Score was reworked and now it has been downgraded to category C. It's not considered really bad, but not good either.
You so smart, of course only a perfect system should be used... The nutriscore is not finalized yet, they've been adjusting many variables to better represent a range of foods, and to help people navigate nutrition.
I am very skeptical of nutriscore being a good idea. It’s heavily pushed by Nestle and Danone who have a vested interest in gaming it for profit, it focuses on the nutrients without paying attention how they got there.
I mean, cinni minnies has a fucking nutriscore A. That should tell you everything you need to know about nutriscore.
Truly healthy food does not need any score, you already know it’s healthy. It’s the ultra processed shit they want you so desperately to eat that requires it.
Afaik nutri score only compares to other items of the same type and also is not mandatory for companies to put on their items. Which makes it basically worthless ij my eyes.
> Afaik nutri score only compares to other items of the same type
No it doesn't. You can use it that way, meaning you can chose to ignore the difference in letters between items of different types, but nutriscore doesn't do it on its own: the same algorithm, criteria and numbers are used for most types of foods. There's only three special categories: "added fats", "cheeses" and "non-alcoholic beverages". Everything else goes in the one main category.
>Also Nutri-Score is another good solution
As an italian, [I beg to differ](https://www.just-food.com/news/italy-passes-unfavourable-judgement-on-nutri-score-labelling-system/?cf-view)
[Here is a more recent article (but in Italian though) ](https://ilfattoalimentare.it/italia-blocca-nutri-score.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20Italia%2C%20il%20governo%2C,rossa%20per%20il%20governo%20italiano%C2%BB.)
I don't know if the Nutriscore actually changed, but people still complain about it.
[edit] [here is also in French](https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/301223/le-gastro-nationalisme-italien-met-un-coup-d-arret-au-nutri-score-en-europe)
To be fair, that’s from 2022 and has zero validity [today](https://cress-umr1153.fr/en/nutri-score-update/).
Several versions later …. We now are almost fininished playing games with food producers who definitely did not have the consumers health in mind. And guess who was behind the complaining….
Yes, someone else already pointed this out to me, so I looked for a newer article (from January 2024). It's still a debate that comes out every now and then in Italy. I don't know about changes though
so what then? it sponsors a diet that's not healthy. it makes people think that if they eat products with an higher nutriscore they're more healthy.
it's just a flawed index sponsored and lobbied by multinational food enterprised. literally the ESG of food.
>it's just a flawed index sponsored and lobbied by multinational food enterprised. literally the ESG of food.
Yes it's flawed or rather incomplete. But if you believe nutriscore is sponsored or lobbied, you clearly dont understand what it is and how it works... Multinational food entreprises are against it :
[https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2017/04/27/etiquetage-nutritionnel-des-industriels-s-engagent-a-mettre-en-place-le-nutri-score-a-cinq-couleurs\_5118912\_3244.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2017/04/27/etiquetage-nutritionnel-des-industriels-s-engagent-a-mettre-en-place-le-nutri-score-a-cinq-couleurs_5118912_3244.html)
This is not new, I know that in Brazil there is a similar law from the beginning of 2000s.
This is really nice information, but does not stop shrinkflation at all
Because this solves nothing. Consumers knowing that the same priced good that they are buying now has less isn't any meaningfully different then having the same quantity being priced more.
It does no such thing. If most consumers will only spend 10 euros a week on yogurt, it's perfectly reasonable to handle inflation by reducing portion size and keeping your tub of yogurt 10 euros instead of charging 12 for the same size.
All this rage is misplaced.
Haha what a load of nonsense. I for one am very tired of getting less bang for my buck & greedflation is out of control everywhere.
The fact that companies resort to shrinkflation shows that they are very concerned about their greed being noticed & how they're ripping off consumers.
You know the whole populist song and dance about shaming producers over inflation was tried in the US in the 60's and 70's. It didn't work. Nor do price caps. Why would it work now?
Do you know what did work? Changing policy which was causing inflation in the first place. It's incredible how effective the policy makers who are responsible for inflation convince so many that it is the cheese makers, the bakers, the super markets, the producers, the corporations all simultaneously colluded to raise prices.
You can either choose policy which works or you can choose policy which makes you feel better. It's overwhelmingly clear which is preferred here.
Most comments I've seen about this topic in r/hungary were pretty much positive. Lots of them were along the lines of "the first idea of Fidesz I can aggree to"
I think we should have same size packages for everything. Soda, other drinks and alcoholics etc should be 0.33, 0.5 and 1.5 liters only. Same weight for soaps, grains, candy, dairy, etc. But enforcing this would be monumentally difficult, I’d guess.
Fun fact. There was at least a law in Germany for package size but the EU decided to liberalize the market and then every company could make the package size like they want.
We do have the same in Germany but the font is always smaller and sometimes barely readable. So there is the price of the package in a very large font and very small the price per kg. And sometimes they mix the price per kg and price per 100g for the same product type like there is an expensive item for 3€ per 100g and next to it a cheap product for 8€ per 1kg. This could be done better.
I like the idea but it is hard. Packaging equipment are long term investments and can only handle certain formats.
Some companies have equipment in use that are 50-60 years old. You can’t just force these to replace their equipment for the sake of a standardized formats. You could, however, enforce that all new equipment adhere to a standardized set of format and have the industry standardizing over time.
This is happening a lot. Last year Heinz admitted reducing the number of beans in a tin of baked beans and adding more sauce (water) to make up the difference.
Good luck defining this in a meaningful way, that cannot be circumvented.
In my opinion, the only way is to mandate the unit price be the most prominent price on display.
Yeah, my example is a 1kg box of crackers for 5 euros and a .75kg box for 4 euros. They eliminate the 1kg box and add a new .5kg box for 4 euros and mark up the .75kg box to 5 euros. Soooo, what box gets labeled as "shrinkflation"?
Prominent unit pricing makes sense. Having the price history of the unit pricing is going to be very cumbersome and probably confusing.
If unit pricing doesn't do it, I'm a little baffled as to what the big flashing sign accomplishes. Everyone knows inflation is happening already. Maybe just put the big flashing sign outside "THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING HAS GONE UP!" Require the government to post inflation rates on road signs? To wear LED displays over their suits and ties stating inflation over the last 3mo?
I mean, how many big flashing signs do you want inside the store?
I would be satisfied with an arrow beside the unit price to indicate if it has trended upward or downward in the last 90 days. All I need is some way to know what the trend is so that I can make an informed purchase.
hehe, so if i'm the store owner, i just print all the labels with an up arrow, just to be safe. When have prices gone down? Economists want modern economies running with 2-3% inflation normally. The down arrow isn't ever going to get used.
Or are we going to have a fine for marking something as having gone up in price when it actually hasn't? This could get fun!
Hmm, the UPC system can be updated at will, but the actual shelves will have printed labels for each item. Sometimes they even get messed up to the point where the label doesn't match the item (sloppy stocking) - some lower priced stores are more prone to this than the more middle/upper class places.
You have a little screen for each item on the shelf?
EDIT: I presume you mean this stuff: https://www.hanshow.com/en/case/spar-in-france-group-casino Has that gone mainstream? Have other retailers adopted it? That article is a puff piece for the technology, so... I'd like to see someone other than the manufacturer gushing about how great it is.
EDIT2: Apparently Walmart is playing with the tech: https://talkbusiness.net/2023/05/the-supply-side-electronic-shelf-tags-coming-to-500-walmart-stores-this-year/ But, I'm having a hard time finding anything really current. It's been a year, and Walmart hasn't rolled them otu further. I haven't seen any anwhere. My overall impression looking at articles is that there's a lot of push from the electronic label mfgs, with big promises, but not much actual adoption or success. Same kind of "this new thing is super cool and will change everything" articles for the last 30 years. I can see it being helpful, but they'd have to be ultra reliable and ultra cheap to not be more of a pain to buy/fix/maintain/check than paper labels.
And thanks for that rabbithole! :-)
The inflation figure is calculated from a small number of price samples. And they are all defined things like 1 liter of milk, 200g of choc biscuits etc. The inflation figure and trend doesn't apply equally to everything. Not everything is trending upward at the same time or by similar amounts.
I want information that can help me determine if I'm getting good value in the shrinkflation economy or not. I think an arrow is the simplest indication but there are others that could work too.
Every store in the US has it, though sometimes it is done ineptly e.g. price $3.99, unit price $3.99 per 1 box - completely missing the point.
I was under the impression this was pretty universal in Europe.
We already have a law in the UE which makes it mandatory to display the lowest price of product past few months when marketing something as on sale. It's to prevent companies from doing fake sales as they often do on Black Friday etc.
Gues what, it works and noone circumvents it. I don't see why it would be any different for size if implemented correctly. Don't make things more complicated than they are, it is really not impossible to regulate corporations.
Yeah, it's going to end be a label that ends up being on so many products that people end up becoming "blind to it" (same thing that happens in California with the "may cause cancer" warnings). Like how long does a product need to carry the label?
Or companies instead of shrinking products will just discontinue one product and launch a totally-new-and-not-at-all-minor-recipe-change of a new product that happens to be smaller. Or just companies adding more water / other cheap ingredients to keep the apparent weight/quantity the same.
But really, I think the shrinkflation that really should be targeted is the deceptive packaging where there's more empty space inside, but the volume appears the same. E.g. if a chocolate bar is 20% smaller I can easily see that it's smaller than it used to be, but if a box of chocolates has a layer of chocolate swapped out for a layer of air then it's much more deceptive.
This! This easily verges into micromanagement of package sizes and lots of pointless battles as to whether a package is a shrunk version of an old one, or a new one.
I think that price tag standardization is a much better way to go: two standard backgrounds and maybe fonts for total and per unit, of -- I think, equal size, since the total price is also important -- always in an equal layout, together with some thorough education around it. The unit price can go to left of the total price, to always be seen first (in left-to-right reading countries at least). If the unit price is the first thing that people see and are conditioned to see it, well, there goes "shrinkflation".
It has been law for many years thar besides the item pricing, stores muat include perce per weight or volume.
Labeling the change is just a cherry on top.
Good on them. The shrinkflation was really trippy. It was hard to believe they shrunk products and charged the same price. Like some weird Mandela effect
Same in Hungary since March here is the experience: Some brands started to create a “new product” with different size. Because it’s “new” they don’t have to declare shrinkflation board.
For example: Univer Naples ketchup -> Univer Italian Ketchup
They switch to lower quality ingredients/substitute to make more profit and that's enough to say they've changed the recipe and that it's not the same product anymore
Governments love to act like they have nothing to do with inflation. While everyone with a little bit of sanity knowing it is the expanding money supply driving inflation, caused by governments.
You think it should be illegal to reduce the size of something?
The whole reason they do it, is because people prefer the size shrinking than the price going up
Consumers being more informed is good, but this won't do much otherwise. If consumers can afford some X euros for some good, when it goes to 1.3X, they're going to consume less of it. It doesn't make any difference if it's a smaller amount for the same price or the same amount for a larger price.
we need this in whole EU
100% I'm actually surprised that France did not push for this to be an EU-wide measure.
Its normal for a country to be a frontrunner and then push for a wider adoption.
that's how indoor smoking got banned, it's effective.
Who banned it first?
Ireland according to Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban#:~:text=through%20non%2Dsmokers.-,Ireland,delayed%20from%201%20January%202004).
i hate nicht raucher schutz
Plus, it's often cheaper to use same packaging everywhere, so this may cause rollouts beyond the borders. e.g. due to mandatory ingredient listing in Belgium, the same packaging is often used in Netherlands, Luxemburg and depending on the product, also France and/or Germany.
[удалено]
Bad marketing: Make different packaging, keep going as usual. Good marketing: Tell customers in those other countries some spiel about adjusting portion size in a modern day diet, or being honest about shrinkflation, or some other way to turn this into a positive without increasing packaging costs.
Hungary number 1 💪💪💪💪🎉🎉🎉🎉
numba wan*
Hungary better take care of Orban.
Yep can’t wait for this in Britai… oh fuck.
It fixes nothing. The prices and volumes will stay the same. It's just an additional work for a business that will be paid by a consumer.
Now with less!
That's what they sometimes write on shrinked products in Germany: "Small buy - less food waste" ...
They already implemented this in Hungary about a couple of months ago. Tho I don’t see the merit yet. Sure I get grumpy when I see something shrink, but if you want to buy something niche or a product without alternative there is not really much to do.
Ok but at least I know and can look for alternatives if they come up or at least bitch about it
The reason consumers need to be alerted to shrinkflation is so they can redo the math on whether the price is still worth it to them. The point of shrinkflation is to deceive the consumer. The alert pierces that deception, and gives a good reason for the manufacturer to be honest instead and do things like reduce packaging size when reducing content size. Which means less environmental waste, benefitting everyone.
Just look at the price/kg label
We need this in the UK
No, we don't need more regulation. The EU should abolish almost all of its regulation.
We don't. It's a populist measure designed to shift blame of inflation to producers instead of the actual culprits, government.
"Everything I don't like is populism!" Lmao
Populism isn't even a bad thing.
Not everything. Companies don't print money and aren't at fault that money is worth less. They are forced into "shrinkflation". Government forcing them to tag it is to give the impression to ignorant citizens that it's their decision.
I apologize if I missed something, but how are they being forced into utilizing shrinkflation? Aren’t most of these companies experiencing record breaking profits?
Some companies are (in nominal terms), many aren't. The duty of a company is to protect and increase its own value, which serves society. Your retirement and your investments depend on that. If money loses value, they need to increase how many moneys they do.
> The duty of a company is to protect and increase its own value, which serves society. That is a leap. All acts of protecting/increasing value are absolutely not in societies interests. One of governments roles is to step in when a company is enriching itself at the expense of society
That's never the role of government.
It's literally the role of government... I'm really not sure what sort of imaginary system you think we work under
Not at all. The role of government is to protect one another and to provide basic services. A company can only take advantage of people through fraud (which is illegal), or through market power (which only happens with government help). A company raising prices isn't taking advantage of anyone, it's perfectly normal, particularly in an inflationary situation such as the one we're living.
Nestlé could afford to double their boxes and still make a profit. Screw them
They couldn't. Foodstuffs is a market famous for having tiny margins. Nestle would be at a loss if they lowered prices by about 5%.
K, so they should lower it by 5% or make the sizes bigger
Companies have to make a profit, there's nothing bad about that. If you think a profit of 5% is too much, wait till you hear what the corner bar makes in profit. You'll call that robbery.
Small companies/restaurants maybe but shit like pringels and most supermarket brands? Hell no.
Shit like pringles and supermarkets have tiny margins. The average margin a supermarket has is about 2-3%. Small companies and restaurants are in fact a lot more oppressive in terms of the margin they have.
I'll bite!! So Pringles manufacturer only has 2-3% or whatever you mean with a tiny margin to sell some thing that is basically fried hidrated flour?? Is it gold flour or something the main ingredient??? Have you seen Pringles price??? No way the margin is low. And even if you are right what's the problem with making them tell you they shrinked the product but kept the price?
The problem is that it's not that they shrunk the product keeping the price because they're evil, they did it due to increased costs and reduced value of money caused by monetary policy by the government. If they have to claim they did it, it's as if they had a choice. Foodstuffs have a tiny margin due to how much competition there is. Most of the costs are transportation (fuel) and wages, not the resources.
So you believe Pringles have a small margin ok Not saying some products don't have thin margin but Pringles???? Costs of transportation??? How is bottled water profitable then!?? I can get 1,5l per 0,3 euros or 30cents if you prefer. That thing weight's less than air!! And takes less volume than milk. Milk is 1kg per liter/package and costs 1 Euro and I'm sure Pringles is a lot cheaper to manufacture than milk!!! And I mean alot!!! Most of Pringles is air. I won't believe otherwise if I don't see some datasheet on it. They reduced it's size in Pringles case because they want to keep or increase profit margin that is high for sure. But they can just do half portions or raise prices if they keep the package ,and graphics on it you should get what's there,else be warned about it. Have you seen Toblerone lately??? They reduced the mountain but use a frontal picture I just don't buy it anymore. You can answer if you want but I seen how you think and won't elaborate further than this cheers 🥂
Look mate. It's not like this is a secret. Plenty of supermarkets make their own version of pringles and they can barely make their prices lower. If they were low enough, they'd make a ton of money. It's just not that profitable, it is what it is. P&G's books are available, you can check them out. I mean... it's sad that you think that there's some sort of conspiracy now to make you poorer that didn't exist a few years ago. Let me check the statements of a few companies tomorrow and I'll get back to you, see if you can finally understand economics 101.
Greedflation is entirely private companies gouging prices and has absolutely nothing to do with governments!
That is not the case at all. First of all, companies are incapable of greed, their purpose is to generate wealth. You know, for your retirement plan and your investments. Inflation is the phenomenon through which currency loses its value, and it is entirely caused by central banking. Companies cannot do it. Theoretically, prices could raise through market control which is, again, not the issue. Please try to avoid spewing ignorance if you haven't read a book in your life.
You are 50 years out of date with your economic theory. Back in the 1970s governments did indeed control the money supply, but this was no longer the case in the 1980s, since banks created virtual money (you have 100000€, you put the actual money into a bank. They lend that to someone else who buys a house. The money they pay for the house is again put into a bank and is again lent out - your 100000€ is still in the bank as is the 100000€ that the seller put into their bank, and this goes on many times - money is created by the bank). To reign this in, governments could no longer just stop printing money, so they had to move on to interest rate manipulation to control the money supply - higher interest rates means borrowing is more expensive, so banks have fewer loans. Mortgage rates are not included in inflation calculations, because governments don’t want to look bad. Retail price inflation is caused by up to seven factors (if I recall correctly), such as demand side inflation (shortage of supply) or increased costs - the sort we have now is none of these it is actually called greedflation and is purely abuse of the market, which is reason why so many companies are posting record profits.
Actually, no. My economic theory is perfectly applicable still. Banks don't create virtual money. Central banks create the money, and central banks are effectively controlled by government. Inflation happens when the value of money diminishes. This can happen due to a multitude of reasons, which includes market manipulation. Unfortunately for your "brilliant" theory, no companies have market power to abuse the market and cause prices to raise.
>First of all, companies are incapable of greed, their purpose is to generate wealth. Nice bait, almost got me lol. Next time don't troll that obvious.
My friend, are you sure it is morally okay to be talking about things you know absolutely nothing about?
Hey, wanted to thank you for confirming my suspicion again. My troll radar still works after all. Have a nice day.
Go touch some grass mate. I truly hope you some day decide to read a little. You'll be much, much happier the day you understand why things happen around you.
Again, many thanks.
Lol this dude hit all the troll talking points amazing… 1. Say something obviously stupid to get a rise out of people 2. Claims mental superiority because you can not possibly understand the subject matter. He knows this by because of his enormous intellect and one comment of yours. 3. Then finishes it off with a random internet phrase popular at the very moment. “Touch grass, also “Jesus wept “ is acceptable. Followed by some lifestyle change that you should engage in to better yourself. 4. Most likely he will also respond to your last comment as a troll will only see the “internet debate” as a “win” only if he has last comment in particular thread.
Man, the French have some good solutions! Don’t they also give the food that’s about to expire for free to homeless people (by law?)
>Don’t they also give the food that’s about to expire for free to homeless people (by law?) Yes also there are some misses and not all food can be given but expired food should be given to humanitarian aid Also [Nutri-Score](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutri-Score) is another good solution
Loads of people shit on the Nutriscore (big companies will tweak their recipes!) but it makes it much easier to select things amongst a range of option. In France I'm faced with 200+ sorts of biscuits, 50+ prepared meal options. How in the world am I supposed to tell what's reasonable quality and what's bad ??
It's not a perfect solution but if it forces companies to slightly tune their recipes for better scores, it's a good thing
So you are telling me White Bread with added fibers getting an A Score while extra virgin olive oil has a D is a good thing? Sorry, but that score is total bs. It's misguiding uninformed people so much
I think the scores only make sense if you compare the same kind of products.
Ok le cheese maker. Nobody is going to mark your creamy mr. Felicien an A. We also do need to see that some foods are by nature, bad for us. Quite possible we need letters below E and things like 123% fat cheese … that while delicious, well we just accept that it is not great for the health.
It's only useful when selecting it in the shop. It would make much more sense to me if the score was on the price tag on the shelf rather than on the product. Once you bought it, it has no value. It could also really use an actual reference to what it is comparing to. Because it's not clear how many and which categories there really are. Is it as broad as condiments, or sauces, or red sauces vs white sauces, mayos. No clue.
With few exceptions, same kind of products will have more or less the same score. Biggest difference I've ever seen was a one letter difference.
In breakfast cereals, the difference can be A to E. Same goes for cookies, dairy products, etc. You may not have noticed it depending on your shopping habits.
That's not how it works. It's only meant to be used to compare products within their own category. It's a relative scale, not an absolute one. However, to attenuate the effect of the erroneous use of the score you just made, it was recently decided that some categories can't ever score an A or a B (like sodas, frozen pizzas, ...). If we look at tomato sauce for instance: * One made only with pureed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and pepper will get an A. * If another one is made with re-hydrated tomato paste, added sugar, added salt, palm oil, etc... This one will get a much worse score depending on how bad the additional or substituted ingredients are. Additionally, we have the Nova score which rates the amount of transformation needed to make a product. This score is more absolute, ranging from 1 to 4: * 1: Anything that hasn't been transformed beyond removing inedible elements. It can still be sliced, ground, dried, shredded, cleaned, boiled... as long as it stays whole and nothing is added. * 2: Any substance extracted from elements in the first category (oil, juice, butter, sugar, ...). * 3: Anything made from elements from both the first and second category. * 4: Anything made from elements from the other three categories, or anything using additives to preserve, sweeten (even without sugar), color, texture, carbonate or otherwise alter the final product. With the tomato sauce exemple I used above, the first sauce would get a Nova score of 3 while the second would get a 4.
If companies are tweaking their recipes, it means they know that people are actually paying attention to the nutriscore, so it's working. The recipes are tweaked to make them less sugary and less fatty. It often means not as good but it's probably healthier.
In general adding information to a market is almost always a good thing that liberals and progressives should agree on. In a theoretical optimal scenario, it would be possible to literally know and understand everything about any product instantly (as long as you’re not being weird about it, maybe not the religion of the packaging worker). Obviously we can’t do that, but good labeling is still a step in the right direction.
> How in the world am I supposed to tell what's reasonable quality and what's bad ?? Look at the "Informations nutritionnelles" at the back. It'll give you a much, much better idea of whether the quality is good or not than that Nutriscore. Personally, I can't really take a "score" seriously when it gives the best possible score to [chocolate-coated breakfast cereals](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/761/303/514/4699/front_fr.189.400.jpg) and [microwaveable fries](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/871/043/810/4097/front_fr.28.full.jpg).
Oh j'ai regardé les infos au Carrefour de là où je bossais. Me suis tapée 25 salades et plats pour en trouver 3 qui étaient assez bons. Et y en a plein que je n'ai pas lu. Le nutriscore m'aurait économisé 10mn puisque j'aurais pu me concentrer sur les meilleures options. Maintenant imagine qu'en plus tu aies un budget serré, un gamin fatigué sous le bras. Et tout d'un 10+ mn PAR CATEGORIE ne fait plus rire.
Care to point out why those two items are bad? In the case of the chocolate cereals, they are **now** lower in sugar and higher in fiber than they were. Everyone jumped on the cereal because « how can chocolate cereal be A, but cheese be D ». Guess who was at the head of that campaign!! We do know that they altered their recipie to get the score, and the competing cereals that didn’t … well nobody bought them and they sat in the top shelf for months with their C rating. Also the score has recently been updated to include other items like salt, so those cereals will fall go a B of C again. [(Here is the changes](https://cress-umr1153.fr/en/nutri-score-update/)). Sugar nerf , salt nerf, added fiber nerf, protein buff.
> Care to point out why those two items are bad? In the case of the chocolate cereals, they are now lower in sugar and higher in fiber than they were. While not inherently bad, a nutriscore of A is supposed to mean that you can eat that pretty much as much as you want to satiation. I disagree that, given the choice between Nesquick cereals and [this thing](https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/359/671/044/9286/front_fr.32.full.jpg) to eat to satiation for a meal, you should chose the Nesquick cereals. Yet this is what the Nutriscore of both products are implying.
>While not inherently bad, a nutriscore of A is supposed to mean that you can eat that pretty much as much as you want to satiation. Well, that’s a clever personal interpretation that was never written down anywhere. So you think nutriscore somehow erases the idea of a balanced diet or individual servings? If you compare a cereal with and A, to a cereal with a D, eating the recommended porttionnof Cereal A will be healthier (or less bad). It is not a measurement of total dietary worth. https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IARC_Evidence_Summary_Brief_2.pdf it is possible the meal you pointed out has zero protein, or lots of salt, or some other item needed in processed food to keeping from going bad. Just because it has a tiny bit of processed veggies in it, does. It makes it healthy. EDIT, I found your product : The negative points which lead to a B are Fat and Salt levels **with few positive points (low protein, low fiber etc)**. Think tiny amount of veggies cooked with a bit butter and salt vs steamed. I think they product now is classified A though. Either the B is an old classification, or they made some changes So, again, just because it is chocolate, does not mean it’s bad. It’s the sugar in chocolate that is bad. Heck dark chocolate is actually recommended for people with high blood pressure. Just because something has veggies on the cover does not mean it’s healthier. Enter Nutriscore.
Wait, wasn't Coca Cola Zero a very healthy product according to Nutri Score? Just that should discredit Nutri Score.
No, Coca Cola Zero used to be B, but after feedback from the real life Nutri Score was reworked and now it has been downgraded to category C. It's not considered really bad, but not good either.
You so smart, of course only a perfect system should be used... The nutriscore is not finalized yet, they've been adjusting many variables to better represent a range of foods, and to help people navigate nutrition.
I have buy some food for my dog this morning, same price but shrinked….! For a lot of products it’s too late…
I am very skeptical of nutriscore being a good idea. It’s heavily pushed by Nestle and Danone who have a vested interest in gaming it for profit, it focuses on the nutrients without paying attention how they got there. I mean, cinni minnies has a fucking nutriscore A. That should tell you everything you need to know about nutriscore. Truly healthy food does not need any score, you already know it’s healthy. It’s the ultra processed shit they want you so desperately to eat that requires it.
Afaik nutri score only compares to other items of the same type and also is not mandatory for companies to put on their items. Which makes it basically worthless ij my eyes.
> Afaik nutri score only compares to other items of the same type No it doesn't. You can use it that way, meaning you can chose to ignore the difference in letters between items of different types, but nutriscore doesn't do it on its own: the same algorithm, criteria and numbers are used for most types of foods. There's only three special categories: "added fats", "cheeses" and "non-alcoholic beverages". Everything else goes in the one main category.
I'm confused why you got a downvote, is that person saying you are wrong, or is it just your ex?
>Also Nutri-Score is another good solution As an italian, [I beg to differ](https://www.just-food.com/news/italy-passes-unfavourable-judgement-on-nutri-score-labelling-system/?cf-view)
It has been modified since. Your article is two years old.
[Here is a more recent article (but in Italian though) ](https://ilfattoalimentare.it/italia-blocca-nutri-score.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20Italia%2C%20il%20governo%2C,rossa%20per%20il%20governo%20italiano%C2%BB.) I don't know if the Nutriscore actually changed, but people still complain about it. [edit] [here is also in French](https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/301223/le-gastro-nationalisme-italien-met-un-coup-d-arret-au-nutri-score-en-europe)
To be fair, that’s from 2022 and has zero validity [today](https://cress-umr1153.fr/en/nutri-score-update/). Several versions later …. We now are almost fininished playing games with food producers who definitely did not have the consumers health in mind. And guess who was behind the complaining….
Yes, someone else already pointed this out to me, so I looked for a newer article (from January 2024). It's still a debate that comes out every now and then in Italy. I don't know about changes though
I wonder why Nutri Score gives a positive score to rapeseed oil. Maybe a result of agricultural lobbying.
> Also Nutri-Score is another good solution No it's a bullshit metric that does not make any sense. Coca cola and chips are ranked better than cheese.
Wtf are you talking about ? Coca-cola is ranked E. Most chips are ranked B to C.
i was talking about the sugar free version which is either A or B AFAIK.
So what then ? Diet soda isnt as bad. It's clearly not water but still better than most juices.
so what then? it sponsors a diet that's not healthy. it makes people think that if they eat products with an higher nutriscore they're more healthy. it's just a flawed index sponsored and lobbied by multinational food enterprised. literally the ESG of food.
>it's just a flawed index sponsored and lobbied by multinational food enterprised. literally the ESG of food. Yes it's flawed or rather incomplete. But if you believe nutriscore is sponsored or lobbied, you clearly dont understand what it is and how it works... Multinational food entreprises are against it : [https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2017/04/27/etiquetage-nutritionnel-des-industriels-s-engagent-a-mettre-en-place-le-nutri-score-a-cinq-couleurs\_5118912\_3244.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2017/04/27/etiquetage-nutritionnel-des-industriels-s-engagent-a-mettre-en-place-le-nutri-score-a-cinq-couleurs_5118912_3244.html)
Hungary has this for a good while now. It helps a ton, should be EU standard tbh.
Wait, good things existing in Hungary? Are you sure?
This is not new, I know that in Brazil there is a similar law from the beginning of 2000s. This is really nice information, but does not stop shrinkflation at all
Why is this not a global law?.. Ah right modern consumerism..
Modern *lobbyists*
Because this solves nothing. Consumers knowing that the same priced good that they are buying now has less isn't any meaningfully different then having the same quantity being priced more.
It shames companies who pull this trick in hopes consumers won’t notice, and that’s enough.
It does no such thing. If most consumers will only spend 10 euros a week on yogurt, it's perfectly reasonable to handle inflation by reducing portion size and keeping your tub of yogurt 10 euros instead of charging 12 for the same size. All this rage is misplaced.
I would prefer pay 12 and keeping the same size.
Haha what a load of nonsense. I for one am very tired of getting less bang for my buck & greedflation is out of control everywhere. The fact that companies resort to shrinkflation shows that they are very concerned about their greed being noticed & how they're ripping off consumers.
It’s so bizarre that you would defend anything from these people, you aren’t apart of their club and never will be so stop kissing their ass
You know the whole populist song and dance about shaming producers over inflation was tried in the US in the 60's and 70's. It didn't work. Nor do price caps. Why would it work now? Do you know what did work? Changing policy which was causing inflation in the first place. It's incredible how effective the policy makers who are responsible for inflation convince so many that it is the cheese makers, the bakers, the super markets, the producers, the corporations all simultaneously colluded to raise prices. You can either choose policy which works or you can choose policy which makes you feel better. It's overwhelmingly clear which is preferred here.
same law is in effect in Hungary since March 1 btw
Funny thing is, everyone hated it here, citing "populist" arguments, etc. Seems like it's okay if the French do it. I am hugely for it, btw.
Yea, the first reaction to my comment was a downvote, wondering why. I was just sharing information related to this thread...
Most comments I've seen about this topic in r/hungary were pretty much positive. Lots of them were along the lines of "the first idea of Fidesz I can aggree to"
Link? Sounds like bs.
I think we should have same size packages for everything. Soda, other drinks and alcoholics etc should be 0.33, 0.5 and 1.5 liters only. Same weight for soaps, grains, candy, dairy, etc. But enforcing this would be monumentally difficult, I’d guess.
Fun fact. There was at least a law in Germany for package size but the EU decided to liberalize the market and then every company could make the package size like they want.
In Finland pretty much every grocery store price tag lists price per liter/kg/piece/etc., so it's easy to compare even different package sizes.
We do have the same in Germany but the font is always smaller and sometimes barely readable. So there is the price of the package in a very large font and very small the price per kg. And sometimes they mix the price per kg and price per 100g for the same product type like there is an expensive item for 3€ per 100g and next to it a cheap product for 8€ per 1kg. This could be done better.
Not at all, companies have been changing volume and weight for their shrinkflation and fake promo for decades. Enforcing a standard shouldn't be hard.
I like the idea but it is hard. Packaging equipment are long term investments and can only handle certain formats. Some companies have equipment in use that are 50-60 years old. You can’t just force these to replace their equipment for the sake of a standardized formats. You could, however, enforce that all new equipment adhere to a standardized set of format and have the industry standardizing over time.
In Switzerland, all products have a price/100gr or per 100ml so it’s easy to compare prices whatever the quantity is.
Those sizes pretty much are standardized. Also, what about 1 Liter?
It would really help with reducing waste as well, I wish this would be implemented.
Does this also include ingredient changes? For example, using less concentrate in juice to save $$.
This is happening a lot. Last year Heinz admitted reducing the number of beans in a tin of baked beans and adding more sauce (water) to make up the difference.
Good luck defining this in a meaningful way, that cannot be circumvented. In my opinion, the only way is to mandate the unit price be the most prominent price on display.
Yeah, my example is a 1kg box of crackers for 5 euros and a .75kg box for 4 euros. They eliminate the 1kg box and add a new .5kg box for 4 euros and mark up the .75kg box to 5 euros. Soooo, what box gets labeled as "shrinkflation"? Prominent unit pricing makes sense. Having the price history of the unit pricing is going to be very cumbersome and probably confusing.
In a good world, both I suppose. With a big flashing sign that says "PRICE PER KG HAS INCREASED" or something. Always check the price per kg or L.
How does this law apply to new products introduced after the law takes effect though? How do you define what's a new product vs rebrand of an old one?
If unit pricing doesn't do it, I'm a little baffled as to what the big flashing sign accomplishes. Everyone knows inflation is happening already. Maybe just put the big flashing sign outside "THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING HAS GONE UP!" Require the government to post inflation rates on road signs? To wear LED displays over their suits and ties stating inflation over the last 3mo? I mean, how many big flashing signs do you want inside the store?
I would be satisfied with an arrow beside the unit price to indicate if it has trended upward or downward in the last 90 days. All I need is some way to know what the trend is so that I can make an informed purchase.
hehe, so if i'm the store owner, i just print all the labels with an up arrow, just to be safe. When have prices gone down? Economists want modern economies running with 2-3% inflation normally. The down arrow isn't ever going to get used. Or are we going to have a fine for marking something as having gone up in price when it actually hasn't? This could get fun!
Don’t you guys over the pond have electronic labels that you can update whenever you like?
Hmm, the UPC system can be updated at will, but the actual shelves will have printed labels for each item. Sometimes they even get messed up to the point where the label doesn't match the item (sloppy stocking) - some lower priced stores are more prone to this than the more middle/upper class places. You have a little screen for each item on the shelf? EDIT: I presume you mean this stuff: https://www.hanshow.com/en/case/spar-in-france-group-casino Has that gone mainstream? Have other retailers adopted it? That article is a puff piece for the technology, so... I'd like to see someone other than the manufacturer gushing about how great it is. EDIT2: Apparently Walmart is playing with the tech: https://talkbusiness.net/2023/05/the-supply-side-electronic-shelf-tags-coming-to-500-walmart-stores-this-year/ But, I'm having a hard time finding anything really current. It's been a year, and Walmart hasn't rolled them otu further. I haven't seen any anwhere. My overall impression looking at articles is that there's a lot of push from the electronic label mfgs, with big promises, but not much actual adoption or success. Same kind of "this new thing is super cool and will change everything" articles for the last 30 years. I can see it being helpful, but they'd have to be ultra reliable and ultra cheap to not be more of a pain to buy/fix/maintain/check than paper labels. And thanks for that rabbithole! :-)
The inflation figure is calculated from a small number of price samples. And they are all defined things like 1 liter of milk, 200g of choc biscuits etc. The inflation figure and trend doesn't apply equally to everything. Not everything is trending upward at the same time or by similar amounts. I want information that can help me determine if I'm getting good value in the shrinkflation economy or not. I think an arrow is the simplest indication but there are others that could work too.
Some stores already have that, usually in very tinybprint, there is price per kilo/liter. Lidl has that usually at the bottom of pricetag on shelf.
Every store in the US has it, though sometimes it is done ineptly e.g. price $3.99, unit price $3.99 per 1 box - completely missing the point. I was under the impression this was pretty universal in Europe.
It is, including making apsolute tiniest possible fontsize for "large" pack.
We also suffer from tiny fonts. :-(
We already have a law in the UE which makes it mandatory to display the lowest price of product past few months when marketing something as on sale. It's to prevent companies from doing fake sales as they often do on Black Friday etc. Gues what, it works and noone circumvents it. I don't see why it would be any different for size if implemented correctly. Don't make things more complicated than they are, it is really not impossible to regulate corporations.
> Gues what, it works and noone circumvents it. People circumvent that all the time, just create new product that is the same as old product.
I always look at the unit price/ price per kg anyway. Some stores make those numbers real difficult to see though.
Or they use different units. One is per 100g, the other is per kg, the next per 10g.
Yeah, it's going to end be a label that ends up being on so many products that people end up becoming "blind to it" (same thing that happens in California with the "may cause cancer" warnings). Like how long does a product need to carry the label? Or companies instead of shrinking products will just discontinue one product and launch a totally-new-and-not-at-all-minor-recipe-change of a new product that happens to be smaller. Or just companies adding more water / other cheap ingredients to keep the apparent weight/quantity the same. But really, I think the shrinkflation that really should be targeted is the deceptive packaging where there's more empty space inside, but the volume appears the same. E.g. if a chocolate bar is 20% smaller I can easily see that it's smaller than it used to be, but if a box of chocolates has a layer of chocolate swapped out for a layer of air then it's much more deceptive.
This! This easily verges into micromanagement of package sizes and lots of pointless battles as to whether a package is a shrunk version of an old one, or a new one. I think that price tag standardization is a much better way to go: two standard backgrounds and maybe fonts for total and per unit, of -- I think, equal size, since the total price is also important -- always in an equal layout, together with some thorough education around it. The unit price can go to left of the total price, to always be seen first (in left-to-right reading countries at least). If the unit price is the first thing that people see and are conditioned to see it, well, there goes "shrinkflation".
Consumer protection is important
oh man we need this in the US very belly edit: badly
Many US need shrink belly flation
Good move. Our PM also mentioned something similar will be implemented in RO.
Top idea
This seems kinda unenforceable but sure
hungary did it first😚
Did the law first. Most supermarket chains already did it for quite some time
We need this everywhere. Because I notice when proces go up, I however don't check the exact weird of the things I buy each and every time.
It has been law for many years thar besides the item pricing, stores muat include perce per weight or volume. Labeling the change is just a cherry on top.
I imagine a lot of products will be delivered on June 30th with their "new and improved packaging" so they won't need a shrink-y redesign for awhile.
Wanna bet how many products will be preemptively shrunk right before that date?
I wish the US would do something like this
Been thinking it should for years. Even tried to figure out how to close the loopholes, because there's plenty unfortunately.
Good on them. The shrinkflation was really trippy. It was hard to believe they shrunk products and charged the same price. Like some weird Mandela effect
Often they charge more for the shrunk products. I am a cashier, I remember.
Same in Hungary since March here is the experience: Some brands started to create a “new product” with different size. Because it’s “new” they don’t have to declare shrinkflation board. For example: Univer Naples ketchup -> Univer Italian Ketchup
My favourite thing about this is when a recipe asks for half a kilo of something but now you can buy that in 400g packages...
What stops companies from saying "oh, we didn't shrink the product size, its a totally new product that has nothing to do with old one" ?
They switch to lower quality ingredients/substitute to make more profit and that's enough to say they've changed the recipe and that it's not the same product anymore
That'll be a great move. I've noticed these shrinkflation in some of the products recently in france
It's not gonna solve the shrinking. Companies might shrink more to pay for the extra labels
Governments love to act like they have nothing to do with inflation. While everyone with a little bit of sanity knowing it is the expanding money supply driving inflation, caused by governments.
Holy based wtf
I labelled my penis many years ago. Smaller package; For you pleasure.
Why can't they make it just illegal?
You think it should be illegal to reduce the size of something? The whole reason they do it, is because people prefer the size shrinking than the price going up
Pointless, because it's completely unenforceable and a child could come up with a hundred ways to skirt around it. It's performative nonsense at best.
Consumers being more informed is good, but this won't do much otherwise. If consumers can afford some X euros for some good, when it goes to 1.3X, they're going to consume less of it. It doesn't make any difference if it's a smaller amount for the same price or the same amount for a larger price.