50 Times People Were So Appalled By “Shrinkflation”, They Just Had To Share The Proof Online
If you've noticed your bar of Toblerone looking rather small and a far cry from how you remember it in your childhood, rest assured, you’re not the only one. In fact, consumers around the world are increasingly paying more for a growing range of products in ways that don’t show up on receipts.
Think of shrunk portions, thinner rolls, lighter bags, smaller cans — in this way, companies try to offset rising labor and materials costs without scaring us all off. But are they really succeeding? Also known as shrinkflation, the phenomenon has surely been noticed and well documented by people don’t find it fair to pay the same for a lesser net weight.
One such online destination, a subreddit called “Shrinkflation,” is dedicated to sharing some of the most deliberate and annoying examples of paying more for less spotted in practice. Below we wrapped up a collection of posts from there.
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Terry's Chocolate Orange Is Now Just "Terry's Orange" With The Word "Chocolatey" In The Description
This indicates that the quality has been reduced to the point where they cannot legally call it chocolate anymore
Shrinkflation is a form of retail camouflage in which consumers pay more for a growing range of products without actually realizing it. By shrinking usual product sizes and net weight, companies and businesses aim to cover rising labor and material costs without increasing the prices.
According to Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and lawyer who has authored a number of consumer protection laws, including the regulations under which the Massachusetts Lemon Law operates, consumers check the price every time they buy, but they don’t check the net weight. Dworsky has been tracking shrinkflation for more than 30 years, and he shares the results on his website Consumer World.
Ah Yes ± 25ml, Thank You WD-40
You can't always get the last amount of oil out of the can before the pressure has gone. Leaving oil in the can that's thrown away. My experience has told me that the smaller cans (100ml) are the worse for this. I went through a phase of opening up the "empty" cans to see how much was left. Maybe I should have formalized the results and publicized them for widespread comparison. https://www.facebook.com/739827619/videos/3134983986753041/
The Shrinkflation Of The Old Pringles Design (165g) To The New (134g)
“When the price of raw materials, like coffee beans or paper pulp goes up, manufacturers are faced with a choice: Do we raise the price knowing consumers will see it and grumble about it? Or do we give them a little bit less and accomplish the same thing? Often it’s easier to do the latter,” Dworsky told The Washington Post.
This Shrinkflation Of Toblerone In The UK, Is Still Mind-Boggling
Not a bad thing! The most violent chocolate in the world. It tricks you! You try gnawing it down and the sweet taste starts to melt in your mouth, Then you get brave and bite down only to get the roof of your mouth punctured by the chocolate Swiss alps!
Inflation In The UK 344% Up For A Bag Of Rice From Last Year
Is It Shrinkflation When They Just Lie About The Weight? Paid For 12 Oz Of Fish, Got 10.6 Including The Wrapping
Dworsky also argues that when small bags of candy have been downsized, you are not likely to eat two bags instead. "But for orange juice, cereal, paper towels, toilet paper, peanut butter, whatever — consumers just have to buy it more often."
Although products don’t shrink by half and the changes are usually barely noticeable, these little differences add up to your pocketbook. If you're getting 10% to 12% less of a product, that's equivalent to a 10% price increase, and if you’re a regular consumer of that product, you will start feeling the difference pretty soon.
This Must Be Their Way Of Saying “We Decreased The Amount But Kept The Container Size The Same” (Oikos Yogurt, 5.3 Oz)
When I Was A Teen, These Stretched The Length Of The Package. Those Were The Days
one time my daughter had a black hole on her tongue and we rushed to the dentist ($$$) before she finally admit that she had two packs of that thing the night before... iiissshhhh...
The Top Box Is From A Well Established Reoccurring Promotion
I see what they did there. Very clever . Took me a moment to see lack of % sign.
On the other hand, we can try to see the positive side of shrinkflation and argue that we may indeed be saving some calories. In the context of the obesity pandemic, this may be a small but important step. When six-packs of bagels go from 24 oz to 22 to 20 oz, the chances are you will still be buying the same number of packages but end up eating a lesser amount of food.
These Used To Be 6 To A Pack. Same Price Of Course
Same thing happened to chicken fil a frozen lemonade..... use to come in sizes and I always got the large at 3.75........ then a bit over a year ago they made the only size a small and raised the price to 4.25..... so you get less for more than a large used to cost..... I was so mad we stopped going to chick FIL a
I Remember When The "Good Stuff" Mix-In Cup Was Full In Chobani Yogurts. Now Less Than Half
Breyers Chocolate Chip Used To Be Jammed With Chocolate, Now It’s Almost Just Plain Vanilla
I Bought A New IKEA Utensil Holder And It Kept Tipping Over. Turns Out It's The Same Dimensions And Material As The Old One I Have But It Weighs Over 50% Less
Oreo Filling Isn't Just Thinner... Now It Doesn't Even Reach The Edge
They Couldn't Even Wait Until The Old One Was Gone To Put Up The New Size
Pack Of Gum
I'd love to see the stats how much they save per year on this. Must be a shitload, like that time an airline took out 1 olive from every salad and ended up saving hundreds of thousands on fuel...
Cat Food. Was $55 For 24, 5.8 Oz Cans. Now $62 For 24, 5.1 Oz Cans. That's .7 Oz. Less Per Can, And $7 More Per Case
and strangely it is one of the most expensive pet foods, yet has the worst quality - full of c**p
Omg! This Is The Best One Yet! From The Previous Post About Bolthouse Dressing, I Called Them Out On Twitter. Lmao
$0.99 For The Top One Last Year. Just Bought The Bottom One For $1.97
Never Thought I'd Catch It So Blatantly Myself - Grocery Store In Canada
Wife Bought Paper Towels From A Chain Store Brand Today. Regular Roll Core For Comparison
Same Price. Bought The Last One 3 Weeks Ago, And A New One Today For Thanksgiving
How is it toast? It is bread (with garlic) In UK we call this err... garlic bread.
2 Twix Short Of A Yard
Not the Twix- anything but the Twix- take the Reese’s pieces instead-
Softsoap Made Their Bottle Smaller. This Was Their Response
Even LEGO Can't Escape!
To be fair, the 2010 model was an ultimate collector's set that retailed for $260 and the 2021 set retails for about $70. So not really shrinkflation.
In Response To The Post About Folger's Coffee, I Call Them Out On Twitter. This Was Their Response. But Wait, There's More!
This Is Getting Serious
Yup. BW3 changed that a long time ago. You used to get a dozen wings for a certain price. Now you only get 10 wings, unless you pay quite a bit more, and then you get 15. You cannot buy a dozen wings anymore. So, I no longer patronize BW3. Those with a local business have much better deals and I prefer to see them succeed. Not my job to fund the stock payers of large corporate-owned businesses.
I Fill Canisters With Our Dry Goods, The Past Year Things Have Gone From Filled To Nearly Spilling, To This
Maybe it's time to make your own mashed potatoes? Normal potatoes, not cardboard.
Can Of Great Value “Pringles” Is A Third Empty When Opened
Can anyone make a projection, in how many years will they be selling only one potato chip in a can?
I Knew Something Was Fishy When I Bought My Creamer Yesterday
New Take On Shrinkflation: Exact Same Product Miraculously “65% More”
Half A Pickle
Wood Flooring, Now With Less Hardwood!
It’s quite normal that there are sold different qualities. You have to compare (and pay more) to get the thick ones.
Note: this post originally had 124 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Don't forget: while this shrinkflation is happening, corporate profits and CEO pay are going way up. We're not all suffering together.
Oh, wholeheartedly agree with this. Late stage capitalism is an absolute criminal enterprise. Consumers only exist to support shareholders.
But who are shareholders? Anyone with a pension, such as teachers, nurses, bus drivers, truckers, janitors, firefighters, etc. Most shareholders are working women and men.
You're delusional if you think every day people hold even a fraction of big companies' shares. It's mostly rich "investors" holding most of the stock.
First time in history inflation occurs and they're making record profits. This is just like oil refineries shutting down refineries to increase the price of gas limiting supplies artificially but not so much gas stations run out. It's the first time in history oil prices dropped but not the price for gas. Marathon has three refineries at idle and one shut down as a oil storage, They could be producing 500,000 barrels of gasoline a day but are not.
That's 500,000 extra barrels of gas a day
No we are not. Which is why I'm totally over any racial hate in this country. It's about rich and poor, not black and white. We all suffered in comparison to the rich, no matter what color you are.
So much packaging waste being caused by these "changes".
Came here to say the same. This is my biggest problem with it. "Now with 50% more landfill waste!"
Nah M8, same landfill amt, YOUR just getting less product and paying more.
Look at the example with the super glue, and tell me that's no more landfill waste than a regular tube.
And we have to buy more of it more often to not run out. So, more plastic.
Why isn’t my waistline shrinking like all these packages?!? 😄
Touche my friend 😜
This entire article is depressing. Prices of EVERYTHING are going up (fuel, rent, groceries) and wages aren't budging. Corporations are no longer hiding their greed and people are being crushed.
The problem with using the term "shrinkflation" is that it sounds like a kind of economic phenomenon that we have no control over, so people will "normalize" it in their minds as something that can't be helped. The real term we need to use is "GREED". Because that's exactly what this is.
Remember: The GOP says we can't raise the minimum wage, because if we do it will cause the prices of things to go up. But here we are, prices have been going up but our wages haven't been raised to even keep up with it. It's like the boiling frog metaphor, but we're slowly being made into a poorer, lower class
You realize Democrats are in the pockets of corporations too, right? They can give all the lip service they want because they know they'll never have to follow through. Stop pretending any politician cares about you.
Not just democrats, inflation is a worldwide problem
This is also massively polluting our planet. All this extra plastic packaging that's not needed
When the phrase "Less is more" is taken literally.
In these cases less is actually LESS.
Anyone notice that loo roll used to come in paper packaging but for years now it's in plastic? By the way , I'm only 42!
I think the onesies you get in the convenience stores may still have paper packaging. The gigantic mega packs wouldn't hold together under paper, tho.
Not quite the same but regarding sneaky advertising, I saw a commercial recently where two neighbors were comparing their cat food. Guy says "but Blue Buffalo is more expensive, right?" Woman says "Actually I did the math and it's LESS! ... than 20 cents more per day." I actually didn't catch the quiet and dismissive way she said the second part of the sentence until I watched it a second time! lol
All this "oz" stuff is doin' my head in. Common practice I see is bags/containers that you'd expect to be 1kg upon closer inspection are 950g or 900g.
You should go see The Wizard... The Wizard of Oz. I'll just see myself out, now.
What really bothers me is ice cream over the years. Smaller and smaller. Cheaper and cheaper ingredients so that now most of it tastes bad to an adult palate. One Canadian company called Chapman’s advertises that there packages are still 2 litres. That’s decent of them to keep things the same.
So much people complaining about about inflation and his r******d cousin but no one figures out it's been always cheaper to do stuff by yourself. Last year bought a manual potato slicer machine and now I do my own Pringles at 1/4 the price. Same with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes and other things we usually eat at home Just stop buying s**t and let the business world burn in his own stupidity.
That's a great idea for people who have the time.
You realize it's getting more expensive to do things at home too, right?
It usually needs some investment, but after that it's always cheaper. But sure it always require time and work. We all are used to the supermarket comfort and I know it's hard to go out of there. Batch cooking helped a lot with that.
👍👍👍👍👍🥰😉
......everything about this planet now is so unsunstainable.............
What I don’t understand about this, and rising fuel prices etc, is that surely this will eventually lead to economic collapse or disaster?? If I have to spend 1/4 of my wages a month on fuel, I can’t afford to spend money on leisure, like cinema, theatre. no more eating out in restaurants or takeaways. Coffee shops and cafes. Supermarkets would suffer as people would be buying less food and only staples. Holiday and travel firms as families scrap these plans. Electricity is so expensive you’d cut down on watching tv and maybe streaming services. ( I did that when I lost my job in the pandemic and just watched old dvds on a little old travel player, didn’t watch much tv but used things like catch up on my phone, and read tonnes of books.) cosmetics brands would suffer as people would buy fewer products and less expensive brands, hair salons would start having fewer customers as people go longer between cuts and stop having highlights etc.
With every shrinkflation so should the bosses wages as they create more waste.
Surprised there is nothing about oil products here. My funace oil is up 50% since January. My gasoline is up 80%. ☹
That's not shrinkflation though.
Granted, neither were half the items posted here, but technically this article is about shrinkflation
This makes me so angry. We all need to revolt, but we never will
Stop buying those things. None of the food shown here is real food. Except the pastas maybe.
I have been able to recreate most every fast food items, with their “secret” ingredients well as restaurants entire menus with leftovers to spare. It’s more economical, and sometimes a whole lot more fun with room for creativity. (Also a wonderful way to interest kids in the culinary arts) . My biggest expenditures are a few difficult to replace items. If you have cool neighbors and they are willing, you can share recipes, and food items.
I've done that too haha. I don't eat much fast food so I used to buy these frozen cheeseburger things that kinda resembled McDonald's cheeseburgers when I wanted one, but they were still a poor facsimile. So I started making my own by copying their recipe, I make the patties myself from ground beef once a week and freeze them. I looked into burger cheese and found a really good brand that tastes the same, ketchup, buns and mustard are easy. It tastes a lot like it but actually better. I'm going to try making big mac sauce next.
Bug Mac sauce is just Russian dressing.
I would say that generously, maybe half of these actually showed shrinkflation. Some of them showed deceptive packaging, some of them showed inflation, and some of them just showed things that annoyed the person who posted it.
Some also showed flat out theft! Like the one with the fish.
Tbh for most of this stuff I agree - it's theft, but for some items I'm not really disturbed. ••• If the quality is increasing & you need less (detergentpacks, given that the useable quantity didn't change), but the production costs stays the same - the price also may stay. •• If the useable volume/mass is decreasing (TP/Ziplock-bags), so are the production costs (most likely) - the price should'nt increase ••• given that everyone is affected by inflation - including companies - an increasement of costs should at least be justifiable & communicated. ••• The money s/o has vs. the actual money s/o needs ... that's another can of worms to be opened. •• ps I know that the production costs involves much more than the amount of produced products
Watch the price per ounce. Especially right now as companies introduce "big" sizes that are smaller than previously and the older, smaller containers are still on the shelves. Bought 3 "regular" size bags of store brand chips because the per oz. price was lower than the family or party size packages.
p.s. If you use recipes that have a prepackaged ingredient, like a cake mix, please note the smaller size of boxed cake mixes will mess up your recipe badly. I now bake cakes in an 8x11 cake pan instead of the 9x13 of old. There's that much difference in package size. Watch the net weight/fluid ounce amounts of anything boxed, canned, jarred, or plastic container of everything before you mix your ingredients. Can no longer just open the can and dump it in. Might need 1.5 cans to equal the old recipe.
Lol anyone else remember when trash bags used to actually fill out the can?
One thing to watch out for is, "New shape Same Amount!"... Once you're used to the new shape, they lower the amount... Totino's Pizza did that.
Corporates make smaller foods in bigger packages, and sell it for more.
The question is what we can do? If they selves make the inflation and rise of prices and then do this because "inflation and rise of prices"
Honestly there's nothing we can do except lobby. There needs to be consumer protection laws against deceitful stuff like this, like how there is for false advertising etc.
This is just too sad. Most of this should be outright illegal, and even if it's not illegal, it's immoral.
There are some seriously mean responses on this post! Do better, pandas!
This is mostly publicly traded companies having to GROW each year or be penalized by the market. Hell, with just being profitable. I think we will see a rash of them going private in the next year or two. Continental Resources just announced going private this week.
This has been going on alot longer than most people think. I'm 64 and I remember when a regular candy bar was the same size the king sized bars are now.
Yeah just increase the price. Except dont, cause the cost of production went up 1c but you raised the price $1
No Wagon Wheels?
......upvote for do not buy any of them................
Some of this, the misleading stuff, would be illegal in my country..
I can't eat any of that garbage anymore. Not one single thing on this list. I guess it's a good thing I can't.
Lunchables now have one less cracker. Not less meat or cheese, but one less cracker. I thought it was weird when two times in a row I was missing a cracker, but after the 3rd time I knew it was shrinkflation.
So many of these are noticeably fake. I have not noticed any of this from what I buy.
Going back decades. McDonald's Fish Filet used to have about 1/2" of fish. Now the breading is twice as thick as the fish and whole filet is about 1/2". No longer taste the fish.
Missed the bagged ice (as in Reddy Ice) going from 10lb bags to 7lb bags but pricing the same.
Walmart Plastic Hangers Are Hollow On The Inside...You Get Less...Pay More And They Break Much ..Much Easier..
Even The Plastic Hangers....Their Hollow On The Inside...You Get Less Of Them...They Cost More And Break Much...Much Easier...
I have noticed portion, weight, quality and quantity reductions in processed, packaged foods and essentials like butt wipe and papertowels.....my concern is that none of the shown products are real/unprocessed food and people are focused on these items - perhaps because they are comfort foods? The cost of whole chickens, sides of beef, bulk tempeh or whatever your protien source of choice is, is skyrocketing. Imported produce prices are astronomical and locally grown prices are up but not as steeply. Perhaps it's time to clean up the diet and focus on supporting our neighbours food production endeavours. I'm not into supporting companies in general, or companies that are notoriously short on human rights or product recalls due to toxic contamination (J&J)...I don't know how to make my own butt wipe but rest assured, if I do, that'll be the next item to exit my shopping list!
I'm boycotting anyone who pulls this BS
I buy Visine dry eye and they cost about $7 give or take $1. They now have a NEW Visine dry eye: all day comfort. Same product same exact active ingredient in the same percentage now costs $14.99.