Democratic lawmakers accuse companies of shrinking product sizes while charging consumers the same price
It’s becoming a common experience for Americans going to the grocery store: your bag of chips seems lighter, your favorite drink comes in a slimmer bottle, and you’re running out of laundry detergent more quickly than usual. And yet things are staying the same price.
On Monday two Democratic lawmakers launched an attempt to get to the bottom of the phenomena, accusing three major companies, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Mills, of shrinking the size of products while charging consumers the same price – a price-gouging practice known as “shrinkflation”.
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“Shrinking the size of a product in order to gouge consumers on the price per ounce is not innovation, it’s exploitation,” Warren and Dean said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this price gouging is a widespread problem, with corporate profits driving over half of inflation.”
What really grinds my gears is when shrinkflation happens to pre-packaged products that are used as ingredients because it throws recipes off. Here’s three examples:
Campbell’s pre-made soups like Cream of Mushroom or Creamy Tomato changed from 10.75oz down to 10.5oz. If your favorite casserole doesn’t taste quite like it used to this is probably why.
Pre-packaged meats like bacon and tuna. For as long as I could remember pre-packaged bacon was always sold in some multiple of a pound, now you have to pay attention because often the bags are 10 or 12oz instead of 16. Growing up tuna was 6.5oz can and its now down to just 5.
The same thing has happened with canned vegetables like green beans or even canned mushrooms. Once you’re done adjusting the amount of Cream of Mushroom in that Green Bean Casserole you’re going to have to circle back and fix the amount of green beans in it.
When you bust out Grandma’s recipe card you need to be careful because her “can” or “jar” of something was almost certainly bigger than what you have!
Oh, and if you are trying to make older recipes it’s not just the volume / amount of things that changed it’s also the formulation. Almost everything that is pre-processed has been re-formulated over the past 20 years so it no longer cooks or tastes the same as it used to.
Some old recipes are damn difficult to make correctly these days because the ingredients aren’t the same type or size. It’s frustrating.