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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

#221

Post by RunSet »

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…

> I wish there was legislation in place that sets legal standard sizes;

Those extracting profit from deceptive packaging would do better to extract a moral lesson from the provenance of the baker's dozen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantage_loaf

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

#222

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

Well, you shouldn't be using the recommended amount anyway. It is probably closer to reality now, but still way more than you should use.

Personally, I use a bit less than 1/3 of the recommended amount of the laundry detergent I buy. It's plenty, and maybe it is still too much.

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

#223

Post by jakub_g »

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.

I watched a documentary on this a few weeks ago. In France, there's 2 big groups which control outsized % of whole market. They squeeze producers really hard.

They have a lot of abusive rules in contracts which are unrealistic. Like, you must deliver your stuff to market X precisely at 2AM, not before not after, and for every minute of delay you pay a large fine. Now, when trying to deliver to N markets during same night, there's always delays in some of the places because the recipients in market Z are slow - fines are on the producers.

All the extra promos etc in supermarkets (buy 2 get 3) are funded by the producers as well.

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

#224

Post by nebula8804 »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #89
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...

The price per unit in US groceries is ridiculous. You will literally have 3 packages of soda all of the same size listing the price per unit in completely different units. Some in ml, some in oz, some in pts.

Just be happy they haven't switched over to butts (yet):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_(unit)

Maybe we'll be going back to hogsheads (or more likely a rundlet) though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogshead

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

#225

Post by usrusr »

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…

Germany used to have that legislation, removed in 2009. Legal packaging sizes were e.g. 100g, 250g, 500g, 750g, 1000g.

Removed because it was, unsurprisingly, not the lowest common denominator EU wide. It's almost universally considered a tragic loss, I guess the only exception are those whose job description includes getting creative with packaging size.

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

#226

Post by aimor »

_ea1k wrote: post #23

I'm still shocked at how quickly and easily most of the industry shifted away from half gallon ice cream containers.

With Milk so expensive I expect the smaller "gallon" will come out soon. It's already happening to half-gallons, some are at 59 oz now but that's not widespread yet. Alternatives (oat, almond, etc) I think simply started at 54 oz. and never offered full half gallons.

Here's the ice cream comparison if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-oq79iur4

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

#227

Post by bombela »

somsak2 wrote: post #185
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…

As sibling comment said, I think this is bound to cause unintended side-effects. I think it would be simpler to require per-unit pricing alongside overall cost, and regulate that amount. Nothing more frustrating than seeing a per ml or oz cost on one item and a per-count cost on one right next to it.

In France, there is always the price per unit. And since the units are not in grain of barley nor a game of guess work (is this ounce dry or wet today?), it's obviously much easier to compare.

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

#228

Post by badcppdev »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #67
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…

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...

And then I find myself checking the packaging of a frozen pizza (please don't judge me). There is a small plastic window on the front and I can tell that there is a pizza inside and from tipping it I can tell that the pizza is smaller than the box. The label says that the pizza is 500g (20 oz) which is totally useless to me because I can't remember if the box said 500, 550, or 600g when I bought it 3 months ago.

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

#229

Post by ceejayoz »

pid-1 wrote: post #182
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...

Why there was no inflation in the past decades? Did companies used to be generous?

Companies didn't have a single easy worldwide excuse that people would readily accept for big price hikes. "Oh, it's because of the pandemic" was not a PR strategy available in 2010.

See also: 9/11 and various civil liberties.

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

#230

Post by marcosdumay »

charles_f wrote: post #158
waihtis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 by…

That's hardly abuse of economical power. Wake me up if they decide to remove some label due to a negotiation. Otherwise, that's the slippery slope fallacy, that is false on practice about as often as it's true.
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