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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

#481

Post by Retric »

jeffbee wrote: post #424
Retric wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if smaller sizes actually reduced people’s weight which seems unlikely.

Are you suggesting that people will simply buy more units, at a higher total price? That would be a novel result in economic history. Local taxes on soda in American cities have demonstrably lowered sales of those drinks, in those jurisdictions. Buyers are sensitive to price. In fact, demand for sugary drinks is highly elastic. A tax of just 1¢/oz in Oakland caused a 27% decline in sales, without countervailing incre…

Not all calories come from soda, substitute good are any other cheap calories not just soda.

Critically the biology around weight loss is complex but even with very intentional diet changes people rarely keep weight off long term.

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

#482

Post by beebeepka »

vjerancrnjak wrote: post #474
beebeepka wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These apps are just scamming young people and the restaurants. Get a wife, love and treat her well, and she'll likely cook for you.

Is a man incapable to cook for himself?

Maybe the person I replied to is a woman. I have a female coworker and she tells me her boyfriend is the playing the homemaker role. My wife almost never lets me cook or do the dishes.

I could help worded my post differently but decided I would rather attract some downvotes and maybe have some fun with comments like yours.

Edit: your profile is so much fun. Is that Serbian?

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

#483

Post by vjerancrnjak »

beebeepka wrote: post #482
vjerancrnjak wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a man incapable to cook for himself?

Maybe the person I replied to is a woman. I have a female coworker and she tells me her boyfriend is the playing the homemaker role. My wife almost never lets me cook or do the dishes. I could help worded my post differently but decided I would rather attract some downvotes and maybe have some fun with comments like yours. Edit: your profile is so much fun. Is that Serbian?

It’s more on the Croatian side, but the languages are basically the same.

Yes, but I guess the neutral spirit of your comment is just “Things are getting out of hand so maybe we should all just cook for ourselves”

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

#484

Post by jeffbee »

Retric wrote: post #481
jeffbee wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that people will simply buy more units, at a higher total price? That would be a novel result in economic history. Local taxes on soda in American cities have demonstrably lowered sales of those drinks, in those jurisdictions. Buyers are sensitive to price. In fact, demand for sugary drinks is highly elastic. A tax of just 1¢/oz in Oakland caused a 27% decline in sales, without countervailing incre…

Not all calories come from soda, substitute good are any other cheap calories not just soda. Critically the biology around weight loss is complex but even with very intentional diet changes people rarely keep weight off long term.

There are substitute goods, but the fact remains that they simply don't have the distribution and marketing that soda has. You can eat a bag of marshmallows but there are no marshmallow vending machines, that I am aware of.

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

#485

Post by robertlagrant »

thefurdrake wrote: post #54
scarmig wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A job guarantee for software engineers.

Really terrible ones, if they think that using data already tracked by the store's internal systems (you know, the database attached to the POS, the one that stores all the pricing data and names, the one you could conceivably track changes in, that database, the one with the pre-labeled data available for one to parse) is something that would genuinely adversely affect business on engineering cost and complexity.

It might be worth thinking for a second about this. You have to link subjectively, not objectively. How do you know a smaller product at the same price should be linked, or not? You don't. Someone has to do that, and over time (should the 4th iteration still be linked through from the 1st, or only from the 3rd, because they're sufficiently different?)

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

#486

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

WalterBright wrote: post #368
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, rising prices reduce demand. But rising volumes also create economies of scale and allow low prices. There's a delicate balance and sometimes an equilibrium of large volume, low price can transition to a new equilibrium of low volume, high price, or vise-versa. For example, if you are a software company and you sell software to a small group of professionals, like a CAD program, your price is probably around $10…

Inflation isn't a price increase in one item. It's a price increase across the economy, including wages. Your theory of inflation does not explain why it isn't continuous, and tends to follow periods of enormous deficit spending. That's a common factor to inflationary episodes, not some industry figuring out how to gouge.

I'm not sure what theory of inflation you think I've presented, because I haven't presented a complete one -- I've only offered an explanation of how already-high inflation enables corporations to become less price-competitive, which makes inflation more volatile, and you will find the same explanation in mainstream economics and central bank publications. (I did explain why it isn't continuous). It doesn't make any attempt to explain what instigates the inflation to begin with, which could certainly be caused by a spike in deficit spending, or a natural disaster that reduces supply, or a trade embargo, or a war, etc.

Inflation isn't a price increase in one item, but the scenario I presented above does not create a tradeoff between one item and another; it can apply to any and all category of manufactured goods or services where efficiencies of scale apply. Macroeconomists usually assume only a single fungible good anyway (a "widget").

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

#487

Post by Retric »

jeffbee wrote: post #484
Retric wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all calories come from soda, substitute good are any other cheap calories not just soda. Critically the biology around weight loss is complex but even with very intentional diet changes people rarely keep weight off long term.

There are substitute goods, but the fact remains that they simply don't have the distribution and marketing that soda has. You can eat a bag of marshmallows but there are no marshmallow vending machines, that I am aware of.

Ease of access is largely irrelevant when people need to eat either way so they can just make larger portions, eat a few extra chips when snacking etc.

Don’t get me wrong obesity does relate to the overall abundance of calories, my point is that singling out soda or candy isn’t going to do much by itself.

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

#489

Post by jeffbee »

Retric wrote: post #487
jeffbee wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are substitute goods, but the fact remains that they simply don't have the distribution and marketing that soda has. You can eat a bag of marshmallows but there are no marshmallow vending machines, that I am aware of.

Ease of access is largely irrelevant when people need to eat either way so they can just make larger portions, eat a few extra chips when snacking etc. Don’t get me wrong obesity does relate to the overall abundance of calories, my point is that singling out soda or candy isn’t going to do much by itself.

There are direct observations of the link between workplace soda availability and waist circumference. You can wave these away as "not long term" I guess, but it's the best evidence available.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31657840/

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

#490

Post by gnicholas »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #433
gnicholas wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Safeway typically shows price per unit, but Trader Joe’s (which is often thought of as a ‘friendly’ grocery) never does. I wish they did!

TJs only has one version of each item so I suppose it’s not super valuable to do that.

For some items, this is true. But it would still be helpful to be able to compare from one store to the next (by checking the Safeway app while shopping at TJ’s).
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