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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

#141

Post by coldtea »

dwighttk wrote: post #99
FireBeyond wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kroger/HarrisTeeter too… It is definitely malice because they use every unit imaginable to avoid allowing you to compare within an item type (kg, lbs, oz, g, fl oz, “unit” (where unit = package))

Nothing that a law to stick to single unit can't fix!

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

#142

Post by Miraste »

eddtests wrote: post #123
NickM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.

Why does it cause such higher margins?

The rather soulless economics answer is that the companies want to make the same profit as before the inflation, so they need higher margins on individual sales to make up for the reduction in volume. Since demand doesn't drop, this is a feasible strategy.

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

#143

Post by WalterBright »

eddtests wrote: post #123
NickM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.

Why does it cause such higher margins?

It takes a while for the river of money helicoptered into the economy to spread its inflation out evenly.

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

#144

Post by Retric »

eddtests wrote: post #123
NickM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.

Why does it cause such higher margins?

Supply drops mean price increases. Goods have multiple inputs but don’t see equal increases across the board. Ie rent isn’t going up in a grain shortage.

Critically higher profit margins doesn’t necessarily translate to higher profits because you’re selling fewer goods.

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

#145

Post by tommiegannert »

NickM wrote: post #106
h1fra wrote: post #69

For those wondering if it's truly representative, it's estimated that 50% of the inflation in Europe is due to margin increase not bc of the inflation itself. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/06/26/europes-inf...

Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.

From my perspective, you're saying the same thing as the parent: both prices and margins have gone up. Then you're stating the definition of inflation.

Parent's comment was (implicitly) about 50% of this inflation being avoidable and thus surprising, because margins didn't necessarily have to go up to keep business going. It was just a seized opportunity. If you can show that margins unavoidably always go up during inflation because of some fundamental mechanism, then that would be a refutal of the parent argument.

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

#146

Post by thefurdrake »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #111
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.

https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/smartlabel/ (I am sure that, since this is controlled by manufacturers, they will use this to remove as much information as possible from the actual product labels.)

Spitballing here, but I'm pretty sure stores maintain a local database of their product prices in order to attach them to POSes. My knowledge may be outdated with the advent of things like Square, though...

But it seems to me that, given the fact the stores in the article were the ones supporting the move, that this would be a viable way to track and display price changes over time independent of information manufacturers control. It wouldn't do to pull data from a hostile source.

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

#147

Post by Symbiote »

mortenjorck wrote: post #64

A brand of laundry detergent I use recently decreased the size of its 36oz bottle to 28oz. The kicker, however, is the approximate number of loads listed on the bottle changed from 27… to 28. The instructions on the back now recommend filling the cap to a lower bar for “medium” loads. I’ve been meaning to write to the manufacturer to ask if they’ve quietly changed their formulation to something more concentrated, tho…

I doubt they've have done this quietly, as it gives the opportunity for some greenwashing. "More concentrated, so less CO₂ used in transport!"

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

#148

Post by coldtea »

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.

>but I wonder if it can be games by changing prices frequently.

Could change it to "show last year of price info". In fact, make it a lineplot (with standardized design).

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

#149

Post by thefurdrake »

delecti wrote: post #110
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.

Like a barcode? Effectively every product in grocery stores has a UPC on it already. So you wouldn't need store buy-in, because the challenge here isn't the QR code, it's the place where all that data is maintained. An app could scan the barcode, or you could manually enter the UPC into a website. If you think this is worthwhile, you could build this.

Barcodes aren't unique.

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

#150

Post by gwbas1c »

eddtests wrote: post #123
NickM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply constraints typically lead to higher prices and higher margins. The fact that the margins have gone up does not somehow imply that the higher prices are something other than inflation.

Why does it cause such higher margins?

Because a lot of companies are using "inflation" as an excuse to raise prices.

Remember, prices generally are a function of the cost the market will bear. If the general public will pay more for something, why not rise the price? If everyone is rising their prices at the same time, you have less pressure to compete on prices.

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