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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

#191

Post by MAGZine »

ochoseis wrote: post #177
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

what, like all of the palm oil that's now in chocolate?

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

tommiegannert wrote: post #145
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.

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 i…

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by jjgreen »

inductive_magic wrote: post #51
jjgreen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all, contemporary French is stuffed with Englishisms, the regular -er verb liker (to like on Facebook) being one of my favourites.

Is "Englishism" slang? The term I know is "anglicism"

Slangy (like liker), I prefer it since it's obvious what it means and it does not get confused with the Anglican Church.

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

#194

Post by anononaut »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #22
anononaut wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of alternatives to PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestle.

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

My point is stop eating highly processed garbage and start eating whole foods from local sources.

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

#195

Post by throwaway019254 »

bluesign wrote: post #156
eddtests wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

So they increase margin to cover for uncertainty and incorrect estimations. And in case the original estimations were right, the higher profit is just unintended consequence.

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

#196

Post by justinclift »

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…

Here in Australia we seem to be having high inflation of food, which the main supermarkets (a duopoly) are blaming on the cost of goods.

Meanwhile, they've both reported their highest ever company profits. :(

So, clearly they're full of shit about the cost of goods being the cause rather than their own price gouging.

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

#197

Post by PowerfulWizard2 »

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…

The research paper linked by the parent comment is using Gross Operating Surplus and EBITDA metrics: Gross operating surplus differs from profits shown in company accounts for several reasons. Only a subset of total costs are subtracted from gross output to calculate the gross operating surplus. Essentially it is gross output less the cost of intermediate goods and services to give gross value added, and less compensation of employees and taxes and subsidies on production and imports.

There are obvious financial cost increases that have happened which are falsely represented as 'profit' in this analysis.

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

#198

Post by WirelessGigabit »

claviola wrote: post #128

This has been going on in Brazil for so long that for two years now companies must, by law, disclose any reduction in weight. Examples: https://i0.wp.com/sfnoticias.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/...

Is Brazil also the country where you must disclose when you change something in the recipe of the product?

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

#199

Post by whymauri »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #71
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…

Why keep it a secret? Name and shame.

At this point it feels like most brands are ripping me off; I'd be more interested in finding out which ones aren't, lol.

Edit: this is what Carrefour is doing to an extent, but we don't have them in the US.

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

#200

Post by hedora »

efrecon wrote: post #84

What is disgusting with shrinkflation is that it also has an environmental impact. In the end, the same volume/weight will require even more packaging.

Cereal boxes are my favorite example of this. Each year, material scientists at the box factory push the physics of cardboard just a little more so they can increase the aspect ratio of the top panel.

One of my favorite health food cereal brands now offers their stuff in just the plastic bag at a bit of a discount. The environmentally friendly packaging lands on the bottom shelf with the less reputable brands, but whatever.

(I’d prefer it just be in the cardboard with no plastic, but it is still a win).

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