(Finance) – The phenomenon of “shrinkflation” also warns the Antitrust, which “is monitoring the phenomenon in order to verify whether it may have relevance for the purposes of applying the Consumer Code, with particular reference to the discipline on unfair commercial practices”. The general manager for consumer protection anticipated this, Giovanni Calabròin a hearing at the Commission of Inquiry on Consumer and User Protection.
And so the most recently used marketing technique that reduces the quantities of food to keep prices unchanged, does not convince the experts, who are observing a phenomenon highlighted several times by the press and denounced by a consumer association. What is relevant – explained Calabrò – is not the rreduction in itself of the quantity of product contained in the package, which it could also be a legitimate business decisionbut rather the transparency of this choice towards the consumer. And in this direction the decrease in the quantity of product without an adequate warning on the front label, could be considered illegitimate and to the detriment of consumers.
The confirmation that the Antitrust is monitoring the matter has been well received by National Consumers Union (UNC), which has presented a complaint on 8 April. On that occasion, the 750-gram Easter doves, 100-gram mozzarella instead of 125, 225-gram coffee instead of 250-gram coffee, and pasta not in the consolidated 500-gram formats ended up in the sights of the association on that occasion. grams and 1 kg, tea with 20 sachets instead of 25 and countless other products
“The ungramming of products is ancient, but with the current crisis and the increases in the production costs of companies, due to the energy prices of light and gas, the reports of consumers had multiplied and the techniques of companies have become increasingly insidious “, explains the President of UNC Massimiliano Dona, adding “it is incorrect to decrease the internal quantity of a product while keeping the package of the same size” as well as “it is misleading to hide the abnormal weight in the hidden part of the package, the lower one, writing it in lower case among dozens of other writings “.
“Finally something is moving on the front of hidden inflation determined by the increasingly widespread practice of reducing the quantities of products while leaving prices intact”, says the president of Assoutenti Furio Truzzi, adding that the phenomenon “empty the carts up to -30%” and “causes double damage to users”.
For Coldiretti the shrinkflation “is only the latest found to unload the increased costs “on consumers and producers, because with the war in Ukraine” speculations and unfair practices on food products multiply, ranging from attempts to reduce the quality of products offered on the shelves to misleading labels up to cut of the remuneration paid to farmers below production costs “.