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Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

theguardian.com

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Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#41

Post by gambiting »

makeitdouble wrote: post #18
thefurdrake wrote: post #7

I think we should place a QR on every product label, and scanning that QR takes me to data about the product such as its historical mass/volume, cost, and unit price, as well as its brand owner right on up the chain. I see you, Nestle. Of course, giving customers information to make an informed decision is Bad For Business.

Coming up with unique identifiers for every single specific recognizable product would be an incredible feat, that would have huge impacts beyond this. Now I'd totally expect a brand to just renew identifiers at random and break any tracking that doesn't help them.

>>Coming up with unique identifiers for every single specific recognizable product would be an incredible feat

You mean like....barcodes that are on pretty much every item ever?

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#42

Post by meghan_rain »

bombcar wrote: post #27
dclowd9901 wrote: post #2

> Guigoz infant formula produced by Nestlé went from 900 grams (31.75 oz) to 830 grams, while Unilever’s Viennetta ice-cream cake shrank to 320 grams from 350 grams. Wish I could be surprised at Nestle doing the most evil thing possible, but here we are.

Why do writers insist on reversing the comparison numbers in examples like that? It's annoyingly hard to scan. E.g, they went from Big to Small and then Small to Big.

non-STEM education

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#43

Post by notpublic »

AlexandrB wrote: post #24
coldtea wrote: post #13

We need laws to require special labelling with the price per net pound or price per net kiloggram clearly shown, and the previous price. Something like: $2.99/Kg (since 18/09/2023) $2.79/Kg (previous price)

Ontario (and maybe all of Canada?) has the former. Adding the previous price would be nice, but I wonder if it can be games by changing prices frequently.

In US as well..

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#44

Post by Cerium »

transcriptase wrote: post #35

It’s incredible to me that MBAs are still able to pitch “what if we made the product deceptively smaller but charged the same price?”, and don’t get thrown out a window. As if that’s a novel sustainable long-term strategy in CPG.

Don't worry, in a few months they will make a package that says "Now with 20% more".

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#45

Post by EduardoBautista »

gambiting wrote: post #34
EduardoBautista wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you just mentioned the companies that own about 90% of what is in Walmart. So, I wouldn't say, "lots".

Walmart doesn't even exist in France, so I'm not sure how that's relevant.

You can replace "Walmart" with most large supermarket brands in the western world. Nestlé and Unilever are both European companies and have an even stronger presence in France than in the USA.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#47

Post by kfoley »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #10

It seems somewhat out of linguistic character for them to use the English-"shrink"-based portmanteau, but hopefully there's a universal commonality (especially coupled with the hashtag format) that makes this move more effective.

I think French people, especially younger ones, are much more open to the use of English than stereotypes suggest. My favorite example is the French name for the movie "The Hangover", which is "Very Bad Trip". Not "Very Bad Trip" translated into French, but the exact English.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#48

Post by waihtis »

charles_f wrote: post #8

This is great, shrinkflation is one of these disgusting practices that play on the human psyche to trick people. But also carrefour (and large retailers like them) are notorious for abusing their power when buying, and are a large part of the systemic problem. I don't know how much this is negotiating technique.

Does it matter if the customer benefits?

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#49

Post by FireBeyond »

coldtea wrote: post #13

We need laws to require special labelling with the price per net pound or price per net kiloggram clearly shown, and the previous price. Something like: $2.99/Kg (since 18/09/2023) $2.79/Kg (previous price)

Safeway is somewhat insidious with things like this. They'll have a relative price (per pound/oz) for one size of an item, and then for the same item, different size, they'll use a different metric (per packet/slice, etc.) to make them not (easily) directly comparable.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#50

Post by patall »

AlexandrB wrote: post #24
coldtea wrote: post #13

We need laws to require special labelling with the price per net pound or price per net kiloggram clearly shown, and the previous price. Something like: $2.99/Kg (since 18/09/2023) $2.79/Kg (previous price)

Ontario (and maybe all of Canada?) has the former. Adding the previous price would be nice, but I wonder if it can be games by changing prices frequently.

In EU, by law you are supposed to show the reference price (lowest price in last 30 days pre reduction) in small print. Different implementations in different countries but, at least for me, it does what is supposed to do.
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