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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

#371

Post by justinclift »

Gigachad wrote: post #349
ta1243 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Record profits as a percentage of revenue. The problem in Austrialia is a lack of competition, hence Woolworths can get a 5.9% profit compared with say Tesco in the UK with 3.8% profit (the UK having far more competition) Not only that but while demand is decreasing, profits are increasing. That's a ridiculous system and shows a broken market.

Plenty of competitors have prepared to enter Australia, and then left after finding there is no money to be made. Too few people spread too far apart.

> Plenty of competitors have prepared to enter Australia, and then left after finding there is no money to be made.

Explain ALDI?

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

#372

Post by kortilla »

milesvp wrote: post #313
kortilla wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 20 different burger restaurants within 10 miles of me. Some are chains, some are local. Some use major beef suppliers, some use local organic ones. All of their prices have gone way up. There is no collusion here and this has jack shit to do with mergers. If those were the causes, inflation would have been a crisis 10 years ago.

How many of these burger joints own the building they operate in? This is a very shallow look at economic forces. And ignores some of the bigger squeezes happening. The number of landlords continues to decline as real estate is consolidated in fewer hands. And worse, the number of landlords that abdicate their roles to real estate management companies grows every year, and the percentage of properties in an area run…

>How many of these burger joints own the building they operate in?

Roughly half. Nearly all of the locally owned ones.

>Inflation was a huge problem 10 years ago. It’s why I stopped renting.

No it wasn’t. At least not by any quantitative measures.

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

#373

Post by whazor »

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…

Sorry but branded products particularly from big brands like Unilever have become crazily expensive. The branded product is sometimes up to 5 times more expensive than the store brand for the same product. To me the most crazy product that was too expensive was some water ice, which is literally water, sugar, and some flavoring/coloring.

Sure there is inflation, but maybe those companies keep sending excel files to each-others department and keep increasing prices multiple times more than needed.

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

#375

Post by solatic »

hedora wrote: post #190
solatic wrote: post #132

Buy items priced by bulk weight to begin with. Meat, vegetables, nuts, also items in standard packaging sizes like milk per liter or gallon. All this processed junk (with its non-standard package sizing) is bad for you anyway. If someone will start packaging toothpaste in bulk liter sizes, I'll switch to that, and find some kind of more permanent dispenser to fill that looks better in my bathroom anyway.

It amazing to me how much premium “health” food has all the fiber removed and is then loaded with salt and sugar. Those are the main health issues with cheap processed food. At the same time, finding food that is high fiber, low salt and unsweetened is nearly impossible. Such food is literally made of precursor ingredients and subsets of the stuff added to the unhealthy stuff. I switched to eating more of the latter,…

> finding food that is high fiber, low salt and unsweetened is nearly impossible

I mean, this is pretty much anything in the fresh produce section. Chop it up and eat as a salad, made palatable with a sprinkle of salt (nowhere near as much as what is added to processed food) and a simple homemade vinaigrette (olive oil + vinegar).

> yogurt, bread, peanut butter

You should be able to find relatively healthy versions of each in a store; perhaps you'll need a trip to a health-focused store or Whole Foods, but it should definitely be possible to find plain-nothing-added yogurt, simple sourdough whole wheat bread, and plain-nothing-added peanut butter.

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

#376

Post by [deleted] »

vasco wrote: post #131
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.

Temporarily and in a localized way, yes. For example, if there's a natural disaster, and the people in power aren't dumb, they'll let prices float instead of putting caps in place, and everyone will be incentivised to rent big trucks full of water bottles and sell it for 20-50x the normal price. For the affected people it makes sense because now they can drink water, and if the prices were controlled nobody would mak…

[deleted]

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

#377

Post by pid-1 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #229
pid-1 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

???

Unless you're in a highly regulated sector like energy or healthcare, in most countries you don't need an excuse to hike prices.

Again, the "prices are higher cuz corporate greed" logic fails to account the basic fact that companies are always profit maximizing and no relevant legislation related to corporate profits was passed in most countries. If they can increase prices without losing customers, they will.

So, again, what has changed? Search for the balance sheet of your local central bank and you will have an answer.

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

#378

Post by tyingq »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #367
tyingq wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This either means that they have a cartel (which is illegal), or they effectively had no choice for some reason or another. ("Inflation" is such a nebulous concept...)

There's quite a few stories outlining how many companies are taking advantage of the "cover" of inflation to take on additional margin. Like, they see cost increases of 5% on their side, but raise prices 10%. It doesn't require a cartel for every notable supplier in a market to have the same idea.

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

#379

Post by Draiken »

josu wrote: post #362
Draiken wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only collusion is the default one: profit at all costs. Everyone raises prices to increase profits, increasing inflation, that increases prices further... I don't understand why people are so happy to blame governments and treat companies, in which profit is their raison d'être, as if they're only "reacting to the government". Of course both are to blame, but let's stop pretending companies are victims while reco…

If this is true, why are inflationary periods relatively rare?

Rare for whom? At any point in time this is happening in many countries around the world.

I don't see how the frequency changes my assertion though. That's the regular boom/bust cycle from capitalism. There are many theories on why that happens but the fact is: they happen.

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

#380

Post by JuanPosadas »

dwighttk wrote: post #218
coldtea wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thinking about it a little more I bet it is very difficult to legally define a product type.

They could go by whichever the product itself shows most prominently, or require both units if 2 units are shown.
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