Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 535 posts

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

#151

Post by Cthulhu_ »

badcppdev wrote: post #37

This is such a good idea. I know that everyone in the Western World is told that they eat too much but people need to be able to buy food and eat it. And if the same packaging this week has 90% of what it had last week then then consumers are going to suffer. In the UK many people rely on Food banks and parents skip meals to feed their children. Cutting the amount of food in a package in a manner that is not even vis…

I wish there was legislation in place that sets legal standard sizes; for one, it would allow for more uniform packaging, allowing reuse between brands and reducing trash. It would be more predictable box / pallet sizes, reducing transport costs. And it would give consumers more security, even with the mandatory price per liter / kilo notices which are often hard to read.

One example of shrinkflation / cost fuckery here is cheese. We buy a kilo of it every time, but they've changed it so you get e.g. 920 grams. Looks the same size, but it's slightly different, thus hard to make comparisons. Still up 30% since before the Ukraine thing though.

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

#152

Post by hedora »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #104
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)

I get annoyed for similar reasons when nutritional information on a product is “per serving” and the serving size is arbitrary. Oh, it’s only 4 grams of sugar per serving. Oh, a serving is 1 bite.

In theory, the serving side is supposed to be standard across brands and package sizes, so that you can compare brands.

I wish they would require a second column that is per ounce (for everything) so you could compare different foods.

Also, they should have to write everything to two significant figures. There are massive rounding errors on most labels.

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

#153

Post by malfist »

WalterBright wrote: post #126
badcppdev wrote: post #37

This is such a good idea. I know that everyone in the Western World is told that they eat too much but people need to be able to buy food and eat it. And if the same packaging this week has 90% of what it had last week then then consumers are going to suffer. In the UK many people rely on Food banks and parents skip meals to feed their children. Cutting the amount of food in a package in a manner that is not even vis…

> Corporate profits are high. Inflation increases profits, too (but not in real dollars). > This is one of the reasons why. The reason why is inflation.

> Inflation increases profits, too (but not in real dollars).

[Citation needed]

I find it hard to believe that corporate profits rise exactly proportional or less than the inflation rate.

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

#154

Post by iteria »

hedora wrote: post #94
BlueTemplar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can (and should!) check the (mandatory) price/mass or price/volume, but of course there are very smart people being paid a lot to design the packaging so that it's sufficiently compelling for you to still put a higher value on the product...

Expecting people to memorize the per-unit price of everything they buy and compare week to week is unrealistic. Also, at least in the US, the price/weight for the same type of item is often in different units. ($/oz for brand A; $/lb for brand B, etc)

I don't think I've ever seen the price per unit unit not be the across brands of the same packaging type. Now this does get dicy for individual wrapped things, but outside of that everything uses the same unit in the same range.

Even still, this is not a reasonable approach to tracking shrinkflation because I know I don't keep a running log of prices from week to week. I do sometimes notice package shrinking, but only because I buy weekly. If I wad a bulk buyer I'm not sure I'd notice as fast

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

#155

Post by coldtea »

vhcr wrote: post #21
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)

Or a graph of the price per unit over the last 1-3 years. They would probably change the SKU so the comparison is harder.

That would manifest as a "price per unit" starting only recently, so immediately appear sus if you were buying the same product for a while.

Forcing an SKU change to have to translate to a "clearly labeled name change as well" would also help.

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

#156

Post by bluesign »

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?

Imagine you buy for X, and sell to some supermarket for Y, and they pay you in T time.

Optimum Y is not related to X, but the price when you replace the stock. ( let's say X2 ) When supply has problems, or economy is unpredictable, it is harder to predict X2, so usually your estimation is a bit off.

So you have to have bigger margin to cover for this estimation error. ( assume the worst )

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

#157

Post by effingwewt »

WalterBright wrote: post #126
badcppdev wrote: post #37

This is such a good idea. I know that everyone in the Western World is told that they eat too much but people need to be able to buy food and eat it. And if the same packaging this week has 90% of what it had last week then then consumers are going to suffer. In the UK many people rely on Food banks and parents skip meals to feed their children. Cutting the amount of food in a package in a manner that is not even vis…

> Corporate profits are high. Inflation increases profits, too (but not in real dollars). > This is one of the reasons why. The reason why is inflation.

No, the reason why is price gouging.

Or as companies like to call it 'not leaving money on the table'.

Prices have outpaced inflation. Everything has, except worker pay and minimum wage.

Profits are record-breaking while laying off workers. CEO compensation and bonuses are insane. Housing prices are out of control. Gas is still $5/gallon where I'm at.

It all boils down to one word: GREED.

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

#158

Post by charles_f »

waihtis wrote: post #48
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?

It does, I won't applaud Putin if he switches to electric tanks. (not that Carrefour is Putin, but you get the point - a marginal fix from someone who is a nontrivial cause of a problem is not a triumph)

This is a good idea, shame drives change, and it's good that customers get better information.

But also, the customer rarely benefits from large monopolies leveraging their power. Somehow they're always the losing bystander in these battles. I'm suspecting that the real motive is different, and I don't know the long term consequences of how they're gonna leverage that new negotiation tool. (maybe they won't display it if the manufacturer gives them a discount?). And then maybe it's just marketing, maybe there's no motive, and they want to show they are supportive of their customers. But then once a buyer realizes the tool they have to leverage an extra discount, it may change.

Forgive for being suspicious when an actor that has historically always been acting on their own capitalistic interests starts doing something that is not.

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

#159

Post by jsbg »

langsoul-com wrote: post #85

Chocolate bars are most notorious for this. Someone needs to do a 10 years ago comparison and there's a massive difference. These days, chocolate bars are all bite sized.

https://www.appliancecity.co.uk/news/updates/is-our-chocolat...
Post reply on HN