Published
Update
Article written by
Reducing the size of products without lowering their price is a technique increasingly used by brands to save money. Fruit juice, cheese, sugar, water… many articles are concerned. Further investigation and foodwatch France investigated this hidden inflation.
“The current situation, with very high inflation, is totally conducive to this type of scam on the label, because to avoid exploding consumers’ receipts at the exit, we preferred to reduce formats and like that one has the impression of always spending the same thing.” “Shrinkflation” is a technique used by more and more brands that consists of reducing the size of products without lowering the price. According to INSEE, consumer prices rose by 6.1% in one year.
For many years, brands have resorted to “shrinkflation”. By removing a few grams from their products without changing the price, they manage to make considerable profits, all without alerting the consumer to these changes. For Camille Dorioz, agricultural engineer and director of campaigns at Foodwatch, there is “no obligation for the brand“to inform the consumer of this format change.”She can do it on the sly, it’s completely legal, so afterwards, does it mislead the consumer or not? Well, for us at Foodwatch, clearly”, he explains.
This practice is neither illegal nor new, but according to Foodwatch, the examples are growing. Camille Dorioz takes the example of the “Kiri” cheese brand. “This kiri, today, it weighs 144 grams, we are on portions of 18 grams. They went from 20 to 18 grams.“Even if this reduction seems insignificant, when doing the calculations, the campaigns director observes”a 10% reduction in the quantity” followed by a “10% increase in the price per kilo”. The consumer is the first to be affected by its repercussions. “There, the consumer, he loses and he sees nothing, because: who manages to see that his kiri is missing 2 grams? Nobody.“