It is easy to view the practice of companies shrinking the size but not the price of their products with a weary eye-roll. To do that, however, underestimates the impact the practice can have on household budgets and effectively give producers and retailers the green light to continue to impose price increases by stealth.
Shrinkflation is not new but it is increasingly commonplace as manufacturers and retailers seek to maintain their profit margins in the face of an enduring cost-of-living crisis, without increasing their prices to a level they fear consumers will not accept – or simply cannot afford.
This week it emerged that McVitie’s has reduced the size of its popular digestive biscuit range from 400g to 360g, a move which will see consumers hit with an effective price increase of almost 10 per cent.
And McVitie’s are by no means acting alone. In just five years between 2012 and 2017, at least 2,500 products commonly found on Irish supermarket shelves got smaller, with everything from chocolates and juices to toilet rolls and cleaning products affected. Since 2017 many more products have shrunk, while the prices have stayed the same or – in some cases – even increased.
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Sometimes the changes are obvious or well flagged across media platforms, but often the changes go unnoticed, leaving hard-pressed shoppers scratching their heads and wondering why products they have always bought are not lasting as long as they once did.
As consumer advocate Dermott Jewell noted this week, “Price increases by the back door are causing serious confusion, particularly over the last two years, and they are seeing people visiting shops more and more often and spending more and more money but still coming home with less.”
Consumers are already having to cope with grocery inflation of more than 16 per cent, stubbornly high energy costs and price increases at almost every turn. On top of that they have to be constantly alert to potential shrinkages in the products they commonly buy. Paying more to get less is an unfortunate feature of the cost-of-living crisis.