@[email protected] to [email protected]English • 8 months ago

Big bag of Ruffles potato chips: used to be 220g, now 200g (price unchanged)

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Big bag of Ruffles potato chips: used to be 220g, now 200g (price unchanged)

@[email protected] to [email protected]English • 8 months ago

So I’ve been buying 220g bags of Ruffles potato chips for $4.79 at No Frills (a value-based franchise banner under Loblaws that operates in Ontario). This is one of many products that seems to be towing the line of not going over the $5 threshold.

Now the bags of Ruffles sold in the same store are 200g (almost a 10% reduction in volume) for the same price. I suspect the same applies to other Frito-Lay products. (I noticed the Flammin’ BBQ flavour of Ruffles was weighing in at 190g.)

As we’ve seen with other products, I think the choice of going to 200g from 220g is an intentional number choice that they believe people are less likely to notice than 199g for example.

Shame on Frito-Lay, Shame on Loblaws. I’m in my 30s, and I’ve never experienced @#%! relentlessly getting incrementally more expensive like things have the last few years. It’s wild and it unsettles me, as I know it’s just about unchecked greed, and wouldn’t bet on it slowing down any time soon.

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2•8 months ago
Uncle Ray’s caries all dressed now. Still hard to find, but they are in the US and sell farther south than the other brands.

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A community about companies who sneakily adjust their product instead of the price in the hopes that consumers won’t notice.

We notice. We feel ripped off. Let’s call out those products so we can shop better.

What is Shrinkflation?

Shrinkflation is a term often coined to refer to a product reducing in size or quality while the price remains the same or increases.

Companies will often claim that this is necessary due to inflation, although this is rarely the case. Over the course of the pandemic, they have learned that they can mark up inelastic goods, which are goods with an intangible demand, such as food, as much as they want, and consumers will have no choice but to purchase it anyway because they are necessities.

From Wikipedia:

In economics, shrinkflation, also known as the grocery shrink ray, deflation, or package downsizing, is the process of items shrinking in size or quantity, or even sometimes reformulating or reducing quality, while their prices remain the same or increase. The word is a portmanteau of the words shrink and inflation.

[…]

Consumer advocates are critical of shrinkflation because it has the effect of reducing product value by “stealth”. The reduction in pack size is sufficiently small as not to be immediately obvious to regular consumers. An unchanged price means that consumers are not alerted to the higher unit price. The practice adversely affects consumers’ ability to make informed buying choices. Consumers have been found to be deterred more by rises in prices than by reductions in pack sizes. Suppliers and retailers have been called upon to be upfront with customers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

Community Rules

Posts must be about shrinkflation, skimpflation or another related topic where a company has reduced their offering without reducing the price.
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You must provide a comparison between the old and new products, what changed and evidence of that change. If possible, also provide the prices and their currency, as well as purchase dates.
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