Democratic lawmakers accuse companies of shrinking product sizes while charging consumers the same price
It’s becoming a common experience for Americans going to the grocery store: your bag of chips seems lighter, your favorite drink comes in a slimmer bottle, and you’re running out of laundry detergent more quickly than usual. And yet things are staying the same price.
On Monday two Democratic lawmakers launched an attempt to get to the bottom of the phenomena, accusing three major companies, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Mills, of shrinking the size of products while charging consumers the same price – a price-gouging practice known as “shrinkflation”.
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“Shrinking the size of a product in order to gouge consumers on the price per ounce is not innovation, it’s exploitation,” Warren and Dean said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this price gouging is a widespread problem, with corporate profits driving over half of inflation.”
The federal government should just enact a national unit price mandate for fair comparison shopping.
Currently, eighteen (18) states and one (1) territories have unit pricing laws or regulations in force. Ten (10) of these have mandatory unit pricing provisions. They are: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/national-legal-metrology/us-retail-pricing-laws-and-regulations
Unit pricing helps. A French supermarket also puts shrinkflation warning stickers on shelves where packaging size changed but price has not, that too should be mandatory
This is the right way to go about it. Telling companies they can’t do x or y doesn’t jive with capitalism if they aren’t deemed monopolies.
Unregulated capitalism is clearly a shitshow so why are you arguing against an entire class of regulations for no real reason other than historical precedence? There’s no such thing as an inherent rule. They’re all just as made up as the rest.
Ok, but how do you see the proposed legislation playing out? How do you expect congress to set a specific amount of product that can no longer be reduced? It’s not like anyone can trust congress to revisit the law when changes are needed. Companies will just start making “six packs” of individual things that used to be sold as a six units per container in order to maintain flexibility to shift quantities in the future. This will lead to way more packaging.
Regulating capitalism is a very good thing, but I don’t see how it makes any sense in this case with the proposed legislation.
Great, now I can more accurately compare how all the brands are shrinking at roughly the same rate. The problem isn’t consumer education, it’s implicit market collusion. Coke shrinks and doesn’t lose profit so Pepsi shrinks so Coke shrinks so Pepsi shrinks, etc - a race to the bottom feedback loop.
Unit pricing is good, but I don’t really think it solves this particular issue. Every time I see unit price even listed it’s in tiny, near illegible font under the massive bold item price, and every time I’ve point d the out to people they don’t give a shit because they aren’t going to spend 5 minutes comparing the prices of soda bottles so they can squeeze out less than a dime’s worth of savings.
The problem isn’t consumer education, it’s implicit market collusion.
Nailed it. And this is why your comment about notifying customers is also correct. Consumers barely have a choice. Everything is overpriced.
they aren’t going to spend 5 minutes comparing the prices of soda bottles so they can squeeze out less than a dime’s worth of savings.
It’s all about those percentages. My favorite chips went from 60¢/oz to 85¢/oz. Clearly not worth my time in terms of absolute price difference, but that’s a 41.67% increase. If I just ignore the amount through my whole grocery trip, the difference at the checkout line is huge. It becomes worth my time very quickly.
On the one hand, shrinkflation is a fucking awful thing to do to consumers.
On the other hand, I wish people would see the fact that they’re eating fewer chips and drinking less sugary soda has a silver lining.
Maybe keep the physical shrink and shrink the price too?
Yes, proportional change would be better although when it ccomes to cereal it is the person pouring the cereal that decides how much a serving is.
The problem is lack of consent.
If I’m buying less chips than the last time, I should be informed, not in fine print, but in obvious terms.
A few companies tried to pawn off their shrinkflation by going the health route. A journalist then asked, “Why, then, are you not advertising the health benefits of this new size?”
I wish I could find the interview because the spokesperson simply gaffed and showed that it was not about health. It was about money.
What we need is regulation on serving sizes. Restaurants offer giant soda sizes because the cost of the actual product was almost nothing in comparison to the infrastructure required to serve it. Selling a $2 soda is roughly the same profit at 8 oz or 32 oz. So why not offer the 32 oz for 15 cents more and make the customer feel better about the value for their money? Plus, it’s addictive and reinforces taste hunger which encourages binge eating and triggers a physiological response to the meal.
Unfettered capitalism would scoop out your insides and sell them back to you if it generated profit. Sugar, salt, acid, and fat should be tightly regulated additives.
Right, I mean the issue isn’t necessarily the smaller serving size, it’s the much higher price per quantity of product. That said it isn’t all upside since the volume of a container increases faster than its surface area and therefore larger packages use less packaging material per quantity of product leading to less trash (assuming the product is fully consumed and not partially thrown away).
There’s a balancing act in play where the ideal size is the average amount that a person would consume within the products shelf life (once opened). That minimizes food waste and excess packaging material.
Since averages when applied to people are notoriously bad (see E.G. attempts at making an average fighter pilot seat) it’s best to offer a variety of package sizes so that consumers can purchase the one that best meets their consumption needs. So as to not encourage over consumption though, the cost of packaging materials should probably be averaged and applied to the quantity of product such that price per quantity of product remains linear instead of being cheaper as the volume of the container increases.
Standardizing ‘serving size’ would help too.
The ‘serving size’ of an 7.5-ounce can of Coke is… one can.
The ‘serving size’ of a 12-ounce can of Coke is… one can.
The ‘serving size’ of a 16-ounce bottle of Coke is… one bottle
The ‘serving size’ of a 20-ounce bottle of Coke is… one bottle.
The ‘serving size’ of a 2 liter bottle of Coke is… about six.
No wonder everyone ignores that phrase.
Those serving sizes actually make sense though. The ones that don’t are for instance a small bag of chips with a serving size like 1.5 servings where it’s very obvious the serving size was picked not based on the expected consumption (I’m certain the expectation is that the entire bag will be eaten in one sitting), but in order to make the nutritional information seem more reasonable. Or a single candybar with a serving size of 2.5.
There needs to be a distinction between single serving packaging vs. multi-serving packaging (which should be resealable), and that should be based on actual consumption not attempts to massage the nutritional into.
On the one hand, I’m in favour of portion sizes getting smaller for junk foods.
On the other hand, I’d prefer to be getting the same amount of stuff each time I buy the same product. I’d rather prices go up instead of things getting stealthily smaller.
The worst is when they use the same packaging, but just have less product. Kraft Dinner/instant Mac & Cheese being a particularly egregious offender…
What really grinds my gears is when shrinkflation happens to pre-packaged products that are used as ingredients because it throws recipes off. Here’s three examples:
Campbell’s pre-made soups like Cream of Mushroom or Creamy Tomato changed from 10.75oz down to 10.5oz. If your favorite casserole doesn’t taste quite like it used to this is probably why.
Pre-packaged meats like bacon and tuna. For as long as I could remember pre-packaged bacon was always sold in some multiple of a pound, now you have to pay attention because often the bags are 10 or 12oz instead of 16. Growing up tuna was 6.5oz can and its now down to just 5.
The same thing has happened with canned vegetables like green beans or even canned mushrooms. Once you’re done adjusting the amount of Cream of Mushroom in that Green Bean Casserole you’re going to have to circle back and fix the amount of green beans in it.
When you bust out Grandma’s recipe card you need to be careful because her “can” or “jar” of something was almost certainly bigger than what you have!
Oh, and if you are trying to make older recipes it’s not just the volume / amount of things that changed it’s also the formulation. Almost everything that is pre-processed has been re-formulated over the past 20 years so it no longer cooks or tastes the same as it used to.
Some old recipes are damn difficult to make correctly these days because the ingredients aren’t the same type or size. It’s frustrating.
Coke, Pepsi, and General Mills must have missed their payments.
