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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

#171

Post by josu »

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...

Do not buy into that narrative. This inflationary process has been mostly driven by monetary policy. Margin increases are the result of businesses trying to navigate an inflationary period. These margin increases are not resulting in increased profits across the board (there are some notable exceptions). For example, Carrefour's profits in 2022 were about the same as in 2019. [1]

From the article you linked: "Profits (adjusted for inflation) were about 1 percent above their pre-pandemic level in the first quarter of this year."

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CA.PA/financials?p=CA.PA

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

#172

Post by eru »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #151
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 h…

You can already shop at Aldi if you like things to come in standardised sizes.

(I love Aldi! But I think such regulation would be pretty silly. But we already have such regulation in many parts of the world for many goods. Eg publ in the UK can't just sell you 500ml of beer, they need to give you a pint.)

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

#173

Post by jsbg »

tomrod wrote: post #40
indigo0086 wrote: post #16

Everyone but companies can suffer from the effects of inflation, got it.

Basic economics. Consumers pay for products. No matter where you increase costs or taxes, consumers pay the difference.

Basic economics say that given a certain price, you get a certain demand. And if the price rises, then demand goes down. Consumers don't blindly pay more for things when their prices go up.

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

#175

Post by ncruces »

A few years ago local mobile operators decided to create (and heavily market) prepaid plans that charged you a per week flat fee (if you had balance on your account).

Turns out that (for most people) prepaid 3.50€/week mentally equates to 14€/month postpaid, whereas in reality it's closer to 15.20€/month (or an additional 8.7%, plus credit risk).

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

#176

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #72
hnarn wrote: post #62

I don’t know what the correct term is in English but in my country, “comparative pricing” is mandatory, so when you’re buying coffee for example there’s a secondary price listed that tells you what the cost is per kilogram or whatever other unit makes sense. For me this already solves the problem, because what I really care about isn’t whether I get 500g or 400g of coffee, I care about the real price compared to the…

You do miss though, those situations where every supplier took advantage of inflation to stack extra margin on. Seeing that diff to the last price is helpful.

[deleted]

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

#177

Post by ochoseis »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #151
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 h…

If you regulate packaging sizes it’ll just cause unintended side effects, like weird fillers in your food.

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

#178

Post by hotnfresh »

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.

The -tion ending is theirs anyway, and they love certain types of English words.

They especially love -ing endings and will stick them on when it wouldn’t make sense in English. Ever notice the French for shampoo on also-sold-in-Canada shampoo bottles in the US? Shampooing. As a noun. And that’s not some Quebecois thing, it’s French French. Maybe they also like the “sh-“, and that made “shrinkflation” appealing.

They also use “parking”. “Le parking”. As in parking lot. Again, as a noun.

[edit] Shampooing is said “sham-pwan”, more or less, hitting the “n” rather softly, but parking is spoken almost the same as in English.

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

#179

Post by lesuorac »

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 is a disease not a virus.

Inflation does nothing on its own; it does not have agency. It's just a description of a symptom (increase in price). Whether that set of symptoms (Disease) is caused by price gauging or labor price increases or resource prioritization is not known just from inflation.

Although if you see that profits are way up then you know its not due to labor price increases as that company's revenue and expenses would both be up and not just revenue.

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

#180

Post by rocgf »

josu wrote: post #171
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...

Do not buy into that narrative. This inflationary process has been mostly driven by monetary policy. Margin increases are the result of businesses trying to navigate an inflationary period. These margin increases are not resulting in increased profits across the board (there are some notable exceptions). For example, Carrefour's profits in 2022 were about the same as in 2019. [1] From the article you linked: "Profits…

I am amazed to finally see a comment like yours, I've argued this point in various contexts and I was treated like I am crazy.
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