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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

#111

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

thefurdrake wrote: post #7

I think we should place a QR on every product label, and scanning that QR takes me to data about the product such as its historical mass/volume, cost, and unit price, as well as its brand owner right on up the chain. I see you, Nestle. Of course, giving customers information to make an informed decision is Bad For Business.

https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/smartlabel/

(I am sure that, since this is controlled by manufacturers, they will use this to remove as much information as possible from the actual product labels.)

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

#112

Post by BlueTemplar »

oconnor663 wrote: post #73
waihtis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter if the customer benefits?

I suppose hypothetically if they were murdering their suppliers' employees then we'd need to put a stop to that. But otherwise yeah, all the more power to them.

Ah, the "sicilian haircut" ?

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

#114

Post by tyingq »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #100
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…

This is a cynical move because, as the article mentions right at the top, this is just to apply pressure on suppliers before contracts renegotiations. Tesco in the Uk does not sort of stunt as well and for the same reasons. > In the UK many people rely on Food banks and parents skip meals to feed their children. A small minority, not 'many'...

If this[1] is correct, one part stands out to me:

"2.1 million people in the UK lived in household which had used a food bank in the previous 12 months, a rate of 3%. This includes 6% of children, 3% of working-age adults, and around 0% of pensioners."

6% of children feels not great, though other stats say the US is much worse, with 6+% of all households, not just children...and I've seen higher estimates.

[1] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

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

#115

Post by robjan »

f6v wrote: post #14

Yeah but what’s the alternative? Things are expensive, you’ve got to eat. I have to purchase things even if it’s affected by shrinkflation.

The whole purpose of shrinkflation is to prevent yourself from getting into a game of prisoners dilemma with your competitors. You can cut the product size, and therefore costs, and maintain a "competitive price".

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

#116

Post by coldtea »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #104
coldtea wrote: post #13

We need laws to require special labelling with the price per net pound or price per net kiloggram clearly shown, and the previous price. Something like: $2.99/Kg (since 18/09/2023) $2.79/Kg (previous price)

I get annoyed for similar reasons when nutritional information on a product is “per serving” and the serving size is arbitrary. Oh, it’s only 4 grams of sugar per serving. Oh, a serving is 1 bite.

Required viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRMcZhqlVpE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grc_pFJG8T0

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

#117

Post by 2devnull »

Great idea but there’s a slippery slope problem. Report on shrinkflation packaging and companies will switch to other less transparent means (ie changing ingredients) and so this adds a bit of perverse incentive. I suppose companies already do the cost cutting, adding filler, etc… I’m a fan of just mandating price per ounce labels on everything. Stores could show current price per ounce and last year’s, no calling out specific brands, just make that data available to consumers on each price tag.

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

#118

Post by selimthegrim »

tech-historian wrote: post #93
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.

This phenomenon generally cracks me up, where you see random (to me) english phrases sprinkled throughout foreign languages. SNL leaned into this, in a skit with Pedro Pascal speaking spanish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkmlfHi9Ll4

The counterpart to this is of course https://youtu.be/nWMp_z7Jnxw

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

#119

Post by what-no-tests »

Wow if only the State could mandate how much something should cost, and then perhaps the Politburo could meet once every five years to discuss how much of everything should be manufactured, we could regulate our way out of this mess.

/s

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