Shrinkflation – the process of decreasing the size of the product but keeping the same price – has been common in the marketplace for the last couple of years. What is usually the first step before rampant price inflation, we’re likely to see even more of it in the next couple of years.
According to the British Office for National Statistics (ONS), more than 2,500 products have seen their sizes decrease and stay the same price over the last five years. These items range from chocolate bars to coffee, fruit juices to toilet paper.
Just 614 products have increased in size between 2012 and 2017.
Mark Jones, a food and drink solicitor at Gordons law firm, told the London Telegraph:
“Shrinkflation was borne out of the recession and has gathered staggering pace since 2009. The ONS’s report confirms this. Against the back drop of a weak economy, commodity prices have been rising over the last five years.
“The recession made people very price sensitive and you can see the evidence of that by looking at the impressive growth of discount retailers in the last five years, no retail sector has grown faster.
“Suppliers and retailers do not want to raise the ‘on the shelf’ price, but both have had to adapt to increasing commodity prices.
“Shrinking the size of the products being sold, whether that is toilet paper, chocolate or cleaning products, is just another way of pushing through a price increase, but in a more subtle way. How many of us noticed Andrex reduce the number of sheets on a toilet roll from 240 to 221?”
Mars, Toblerone and Cadbury all made headlines over the last couple of years because their products have gotten smaller while the prices have either remained the same or increased.
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