Buy less quantity, but pay more. Not sure that the formula is suitable for the greatest number. However, this is a common practice, used by some food manufacturers on products on the shelves of supermarkets in France. In the Complément d’Enquête program broadcast Thursday, September 1 on France 2, the NGO Foodwatch, which campaigns for transparency in the agri-food sector, pinpoints six brands “which have changed the size of their flagship products in recent years”, while maintaining their prices, or even increasing them.
- What exactly does this consist of?
The phenomenon, theorized by economists, is called “shrinkflation”: a contraction of the verb “to shrink” (which means “to reduce” in English) and the word “inflation”. In order not to increase prices on the shelves too much and risk scaring away customers worried about their wallets, some manufacturers are discreetly reducing the quantity or even the quality of their products. In other words, they operate an increase in the cost of the product, by reducing the quantity for the same price. The impression many consumers have of buying less filled milk bottles, less filled packets of biscuits or even less filled rolls of toilet paper is not just a feeling: it is very real.
On the website of the NGO Foodwatch, Camille Dorioz, director of campaigns, explains that hidden inflation is difficult to document. “You don’t find both formats on the shelves at the same time”. Alerted by dissatisfied consumers, the NGO plunged into the old promotional catalogs of supermarkets and thus found formats of certain larger and cheaper products. “A reduction in size of 10 to 20% allows, the air nothing, to make nice savings without the knowledge of consumers when prices rise, up to +37% per liter or per kilo, while unit prices increase much less”, estimates the organization. “Certain modifications made on the sly dated back to 2019. The phenomenon is therefore not recent but is very likely to increase because manufacturers often justify ‘shrinkflation’ by the price of raw materials, which have risen sharply in recent months”, adds she.
Although misleading for consumers, this practice is however completely regulatory. Because when manufacturers change the quantity of the product, while keeping the same price, they also modify the labels on which the weight is mentioned. The consumer then holds all the information to which he has the right of access.
“As long as the labeling is compliant, there is nothing illegal”, explains marketing professor Pierre Chandon to our colleagues from Echoes. The best solution for consumers then consists in checking the price per kilo, which increases significantly in the event of “shrinkflation”. “It should be noted that alcohol is the only good whose concentration per unit is strictly regulated”, he specifies. For its part, Foodwatch regrets the “opacity” of the process and calls for better transparency in consumer information, via a petition.
- Who practices “shrinkflation”?
Reducing the quantities makes it possible to remain “competitive” while preserving the margins, recently commented the financial analyst John Plassard, of the fund manager Mirabaud. According to him, about 2% of food products sold in supermarkets could be affected by “shrinkflation”, cereals and chocolate bars in mind.
In its study, the NGO Foodwatch singles out six products. Among them, Lindt’s Pyrenean milk chocolate boxes have been reduced by six bites, from 30 to 24 and reducing the overall weight by 20%. The price per kilo, recorded at the Carrefour distributor, has jumped 30% since 2020, while the price of the box has been limited to 4%. To justify itself, Lindt France explains that “the price per kilogram has increased, reflecting the volatility and rising costs of (its) operations”, according to a letter sent to Foodwatch and consulted by Agence France Presse.
The distributor Saint-Louis changed the packaging of its sugar bricks by transforming the 500g and 750g format into a single 650g format three and a half years ago. For a weight reduction of 13%, the unit price increased by 12% while the price per kilo rose by 29% at Carrefour. Kiri also reduced the serving size of its processed cheese by 10% a year and a half ago. Small portions that used to weigh 20g are now 18g. At Auchan, the unit price does not seem to have changed but the price per kilo has increased by 11%.
Manufacturers are not lacking in tricks to hide this “shrinkflation” as well as possible. In The echoes, marketing professor Pierre Chandon cites as an example some brands of toilet paper or paper towel that increase the size of the roll tube while decreasing the amount of paper, in order to increase their margins. “When the roll no longer contained enough paper, they had the idea of launching XXL formats, sometimes called family format, which were in fact the old normal formats,” he explains.
- Does the phenomenon exist abroad?
In recent days, in the United States, “shrinkflation” has been invited on the social network Tik Tok. Many consumers have taken to denouncing the concept en masse through the publication of videos where they pack a vacuum into a box. According to a survey by the company Morning Consult, published on August 29, almost two-thirds of Americans (64%) are worried about “shrinkflation”. The main categories where consumers are noticing a change are snacks, frozen foods, meat, breads and pastries.
The phenomenon is also well known among our neighbors across the Channel. In 2016, the famous confectionery brand Toblerone had even become its symbol. Faced with the fall of the pound sterling, following the referendum in favor of Brexit, the industrialist had announced to reduce the weight of two bars on sale in the United Kingdom, while maintaining its price at the same. In addition, according to the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), more than 2,500 products had their packaging changed between 2015 and 2017 to reduce their capacity.
Same observation in Spain, where the phenomenon is called “reduflation” (contraction of reduction and inflation). The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has alerted Spanish consumers to the fact “that some food manufacturers are reducing the content of their packaging by 5 to 10% to deceive consumers and that the rise in food prices not be noticed”. The mechanism is also particularly scrutinized in Italy.