• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    103
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I would LOVE to see more of this. Looking at you GATORADE, with your half-inch-deep plastic rim on the bottom and new hourglass bottle shape. 32oz sized bottles are 28oz now and MORE expensive. Fuck shrinkflation to death.

    • @666dollarfootlong
      link
      English
      108 months ago

      Yeah for some reason drinks seem the most effected by shrinkflation, I hate going to the drinks aisles these days because everything seems so overpriced, even just regular tap/spring water

      • Gormadt
        link
        fedilink
        English
        228 months ago

        And the margins are so large on drinks already that they’re just trying to scrape even more money from you

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -28 months ago

        Potato chips have the same, you can’t know how much is in them because they blow them up with gasses in order to “preserve” them.

        • @666dollarfootlong
          link
          English
          88 months ago

          Ehh, it still says how many grams is in there, I’ve never really understood this gas-argument

            • eric
              link
              English
              28 months ago

              And it works, so the quotes around “preserve” are absolute bullshit.

              And before you accuse me of being a shill for big chip, try putting both a sealed bag of your chips and an unsealed but folded closed bag of chips in your backpack with your laptop and books for a day walking around, and see which one has larger, more complete chips at the end of the experiment.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                1
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                It does its intended job of protecting chips very well.

                It also allows producers to visually conceal how much product is actually in the bag. Weirdly enough they’re still using the same size bags instead of a smaller, more efficient ones that would save manufacturing and transportation costs.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    698 months ago

    If only smart glass is as popular as mobile phones. When Google introduced their smart glass, I dreamt of a day when a price history overlay is displayed when looking at a barcode, like how Keepa is doing for Amazon.

    I also like German price display which has effective price, as in Eur per liter for drinks, making it dead simple to compare products. A smart glass will make it available everywhere.

    Back to Carrefour, I really like that they are pushing pro consumer actions. However, we all know too well that they won’t do the same when it’s their products which are shrinking. Still better than no action though.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      25
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Afaik the base price display is requiered by EU law, atleast Czechia got them too on my last vacation.

      • @kameecoding
        link
        English
        98 months ago

        it’s so good too, you can cut through all the bullshit and simply check if per kg/liter It’s cheaper or not.

        even though for a lot of stuff it’s simple math. 100g you just 10x, 250 you 4 x the price, 200g you 5x.

        but there are lots of stuff that’s packaged in weird amounts. 230g yogurt, 180g tofu.

        you don’t want to break out the calculator for shopping.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          6
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          Your comment made me realized that displaying the price per kg is not a standard everywhere.

          This is the only price I’m looking at when doing groceries.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            38 months ago

            Same for me, I got so used to it.
            The only annoyance is when (mostly brand) stuff is purposefully displayed in a different unit (e.g. washing powder in washing loads instead of kg). But imho that kind of obfuscation speaks for itself…

        • udon
          link
          English
          18 months ago

          Works for basic ingredients, but for even basic “preprocessed” items (mixed nuts, pizza, sauces…) they can just change the recipe, put more of the cheap and less of the good stuff. The cheapest product per weight often has a worse quality. Sunflower oil instead of more healthy alternatives etc…

          • @kameecoding
            link
            English
            18 months ago

            i mean you can buy whatever ypu want that’s not really relevant to the price/kg(/l)

            there are plenty of products that are identical but have very different pricing

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        38 months ago

        It is but it does nothing to curb shrinkflation in my experience.

        I’m trying to think of a way to mandate this kind of notification but I can’t think of a way to do it that could be both clear and mandated. Perhaps if the price per changes there needs to be a history listed on the label.

        One big problem with it is that in the short-term it discourages sales, so groceries aren’t incentivised to do it except as a stunt like this, so they won’t want the notices to be prominent. Ultimately they still want you to buy the stuff because then they make money.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            18 months ago

            Yeah I mean a price per unit history over the past X period, at least a year if I had my way, so if it changes a lot you end up with a clear list. That’s actually not bad. Over time people would learn to read it and be educated about it and there might be more public pressure against it.

      • @dustyData
        link
        English
        58 months ago

        Google said that a decade ago…and it was said the decade before that…

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          18 months ago

          I don’t really know what google has said, I wasn’t really referring to them, but AR is plenty used in industry already.

          There’s just some way to go left for consumer use, but we are getting there. 5G networks are also supposed to help our with the possibility, due to their increased capabilities.

          Consumer grade AR is being worked on, and it is expected to become a big thing eventually.

          • @dustyData
            link
            English
            18 months ago

            I was referencing Google Glass, which was Google’s attempt to make a consumer grade AR, a decade ago. They also said that they would have Glass commercially rolled out within the decade. It failed, not for any technical reason, but because it looks stupid and it makes everyone around the person using AR feel awkward. It was universally ridiculed online, has no use case and it has no consumer market. As you said, it only has uses in industrial applications, because factory workers don’t have to care about fashion or aesthetics in general in their work place. But people are already uncomfortable with everyone having a camera and microphone in their pockets at all times. Now imagine that every single second of your day was potentially recorded, sent back to Google, analyzed, used to train an AI, minified to tailor ads to manipulate your behavior, which would be easy because you have a screen glued to your eye 24/7 already; and also potentially having it all shared with authorities without your consent, along with the faces and data of every single acquaintance and stranger you interacted with without their consent…yeah, that doesn’t sound like another step in the privacy dystopia we live in already.

            But Apple is making the Vision Pro now, I’m sure a couple million of gullible consumers will shell out money for that. And maybe the AR era will finally come to us.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              08 months ago

              Those are all technical reasons though. Aesthetics are limited by the technology. And the glasses calling home more than it should is also a technical and regulatory reason.

              It can absolutely be done while sidestepping all the concerns. Or better yet, have glasses running FOSS software.

              But sure, those concerns are reasonable, but they are not fundamental to the technology itself, but to our societal reality. That stuff won’t get fixed by avoiding technology, only by societal change. And you can be sure that all kinds of stuff will be pushed into people if that societal change doesn’t happen, no matter whether it’s AR or not. (Just look at the recent trend of enshittification of everything).

              • @dustyData
                link
                English
                18 months ago

                Pick a lane, is it “limited by the technology” or are concerns and limitations “not fundamental to the technology”. Both statements cannot be true at the same time.

                AR, just like VR, have problems for which the technological solutions are either not physically possible in reality as we understand it, or the practical solutions completely nullify any cool factor the technology has to offer, or the price to overcome them is so high that they would never be financially feasible to become a commercial product. Like other futuristic fantasies like flying cars, and holographic interfaces, they sound cool in paper, are shit in reality.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  0
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  I was referring to the concerns about privacy. In addition, when I say “to the technology itself” I am referring to AR in its ideal form.

                  …also XR technologies are absolutely technically feasible. They’re not even that extravagant these days. The fundamentals are in place, and used.

  • @hark
    link
    English
    688 months ago

    I’d love to see this naming and shaming becoming a standard. I want to know if the product I’m buying has changed and while I try to do this myself, it can be tricky to keep track of all the products I buy and it’s not like I’m scanning the exact weight every time and memorizing it, just that it’s generally the same weight. These scumbag companies are always trying to sneak by all these changes over time, it’s great to finally get a spotlight shining on it. If some sort of legislation can be made to force companies to note changes in products made in the last 6 months on the label, that would be great.

    • Spzi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      158 months ago

      I want to know if the product I’m buying has changed and while

      Makes me think of a local git diff since your last purchase(s). See at a glance if it has changed, and what has changed.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      78 months ago

      Exactly my thought for a long time. A law which mandates companies to…I don’t know…put on a label, occupying at least 1/3 of the whole packaging with giant red/white font to say at least for 3-6 months: “The net weight/contenct was reduced by 15%.”

    • alphacyberrangerOP
      link
      English
      58 months ago

      A simple QR code should do the trick. People can even make apps for tracking the changes.

      • Lols [they/them]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        4
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        maybe even a barcode, some sort of universal product code that apps could read easily

        • @ReginaPhalange
          link
          English
          18 months ago

          “What do you mean I should put the same barcode on these 2 clearly diffrent 1.25 litter coke bottle that we stopped selling a year ago and the new 1.15 litter bottle?
          That’s absurd!
          Also, fuck you.”

  • HidingCat
    link
    fedilink
    558 months ago

    Man, the French really don’t fuck around, do they?

    Though the article says that Carrefour themselves do it for their house brands, so does that mean they’ll also apply it to themselves? XD

      • Ech
        link
        fedilink
        English
        78 months ago

        Tbf, their stated purpose is to bring attention to the price discrepancy on diminished products. I would assume they believe their pricing is fair in that respect.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      128 months ago

      Yeah, no… Carrefour conglomerate is peak capitalism, so I can only assume this action is a way to push people to their own brand stuff.

  • FLeX
    link
    English
    408 months ago

    Carrefour are fucking thieves and their own low-price brands are also shrinkflationated carcinogenic crap.

    They don’t really have anything to teach.

  • Echo Dot
    link
    fedilink
    English
    398 months ago

    It appears to be in some mystic arcane language but I have been able to translate it:

    This product has seen its liters

    REDUCED

    and the price charged by our supplier

    INCREASE

    WE COMMIT TO RENEGOTIATING THIS RATE

  • WuTang
    link
    fedilink
    English
    258 months ago

    don’t forget the price in retail include the destruction cost. they are winning on both side.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    198 months ago

    I know only one case where this shrinkflation thing was stopped - one beer company decided to sell 0.4l cans, because “that’s what the customers want”. It turned out pretty fast that wasn’t what their customers wanted :)

  • AutoTL;DRB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    168 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The French supermarket chain Carrefour has put labels on its shelves this week warning shoppers of “shrinkflation”, the phenomenon where manufacturers reduce pack sizes rather than increase prices.

    It has slapped price warnings on products from Lindt chocolates to Lipton iced tea to pressure top consumer goods suppliers Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to tackle the issue in advance of much-anticipated contract talks.

    Since Monday, Carrefour has been putting stickers on products that have shrunk in size but cost more even after raw materials prices have eased, to rally consumer support as retailers prepare to face the world’s biggest brands in negotiations due to start soon and end by 15 October.

    “Obviously, the aim in stigmatising these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to rethink their pricing policy,” Stefen Bompais, the director of client communications at Carrefour, said in an interview.

    The Carrefour chief executive, Alexandre Bompard, who also heads the retail industry lobby group FDC, has repeatedly said consumer goods companies are not cooperating in efforts to cut the price of thousands of staples despite a fall in the cost of raw materials.

    In this he is backed by the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, who in June summoned 75 big retailers and consumer groups to his ministry urging them to cut prices.


    The original article contains 494 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    158 months ago

    Good for them. I made tacos for the first time in ages a couple of days ago, and I could not believe the size of the shells now. I would have called them child-sized, they were so small. It’s disgusting.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -128 months ago

      Sounds like you just bought normal sized tortillas, like they use in Mexico. “Child-sized”? Lol.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        108 months ago

        Hard taco shells are an American Tex-Mex dish – they’re distinct from tortillas or tostadas

      • @NightAuthor
        link
        English
        98 months ago

        Do they use hard shells in Mexico?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        58 months ago

        Motherfucker, have you never had a big ass burrito? The real Mexicans make their own tortillas, and if they feel like it, they’ll make one big enough to be used as a bedroll.

  • Arghblarg
    link
    fedilink
    English
    10
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Geat idea! There’s no reason this couldn’t be done everywhere by citizens with access to sticker printing services… I’ve spotted a few products myself in the past year and wouldn’t be against sticking some labels on them to warn my fellow shoppers :)

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    18 months ago

    To be fair, most likely of these ‘foods’ look like complete junk. Over-processed shit. Huge mark-ups on what amounts to packaging and cheap fat/sugar/industrial flavours.

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy
      link
      English
      168 months ago

      Baby formula was listed. The shrinkflation has affected more than just junk food.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            18 months ago

            If people stopped eating shit over-processed foods they would probably save money and definitely be healthier

            • @KillAllPoorPeople
              link
              English
              18 months ago

              Or they’d spend more money and be less healthy. A food being “over-processed” doesn’t mean jack shit on its own nor does it mean it’s more expensive.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      68 months ago

      Lurpak shrank all their butter by 20%. In looks it’s barely noticeable. In reality it’s a 25% price hike.

  • @Pat12
    link
    English
    18 months ago

    deleted by creator