“New improved recipe!” “Now there’s more cheese”. Manufacturers and retailers have long been quick to announce some changes to their products, but there are others they’d rather you didn’t notice. The smaller that pack size and changes in ingredients to reduce the cost of production – both undisclosed – face the consumer, but unless you look closely you might not know. That’s the intention.
There are packs of butter that have shrunk from 250g to 200g without advertising the change, catching bakers in the process; the shrinking pet food pouches that have left cat owners wondering why their moggies are meowing for more; the spreading olive oil that goes by the same name despite the ingredient split in the headline.
On supermarket shelves there are examples of retailers and manufacturers shaving off contents and dialing down expensive ingredients and, apparently, hoping we don’t notice. Shrinkflation – where pack sizes are reduced and prices stay the same, or even increase, and skimpflation – where recipes are reformulated and expensive ingredients are reduced – are common and as a result people are spending money on things they think they have bought before and then finding they are not the same.
I’ve written about this phenomenon on several occasions over the past year and when I approach manufacturers and retailers for comment they usually talk about trying to keep their products affordable during increasing production costs. Reformulations and volume reductions have been “difficult decisions”, presented as trying to protect the consumer.
But the way it’s usually done doesn’t protect them. Instead, it makes it harder for consumers to make informed decisions about what they buy.
It is left to consumers to spot the difference in packaging. It can take time to research if a product has actually changed. How should a customer check standing in a store? Barclaycard and Which? customers have been found to be suspicious of some products going bad, but unless you collect old cans and boxes, how can you compare the version you bought last year to the one you have in your kitchen?
What’s worse, the official inflation figures capture only part of this. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is considering changes to pack sizes. So when it says the price of butter has fallen, that’s not because you now get 200g rather than 250g – the price has actually fallen.
But skimpflation is under the official radar. And that could mean rising costs are disguised. For example, the price of a box of tissues is recorded, but not the fact that they are smaller and you may now need twice the amount for your nose.
When the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority reviewed grocery price inflation last year, it raised concerns about consumers’ ability to compare prices if pack sizes change. It said that clear and consistent unit pricing – when, for example, a price per gram is shown – could help with comparisons as the unit price would rise in line with deflation. However, it acknowledged that “it may not be a sufficient number [the] the buyer usually will not know what the previous price of the unit was”. In what it refers to as “scrimpflation”, it has suggested consumers vote with their feet if quality is reduced too much.
“Manufacturers are unlikely to advertise any reduction in quality, so customers will not be aware of the change, unless they see a noticeable reduction in quality, in which case they may consider switching to an alternative product ,” it says — although it notes that it may be harder on pet food than other products.
Once one big manufacturer moves, others are likely to follow. Budget supermarkets, in particular, follow the lead of the rest of the market, so if higher quality ingredients are cut by the biggest names in the sector, you can bet you’ll see this filter. And so you have worse products across the board and nothing to switch to.
Take the olive oil spread for example: before, Bertolli’s version contained 21% olive oil and so did the supermarket versions. Now it appears that most contain 10% (Asda seems to be the exception). Pack designs may have changed but there’s no warning you that the contents are there and so customers only know they’ve bought something else when it’s on their toast.
It doesn’t have to be like this. In France, Carrefour has put up signs warning customers of examples of shrinkage and ministers there and in Germany are reportedly considering ways to tackle the problem. In South Korea, new laws will oblige manufacturers to clarify when a product has been reduced in size.
In the UK, packaging rules insist that information is accurate and that consumers are not misled. This means that manufacturers have to change the packet when they make any of these changes. So why not force them to highlight the difference when they make that change?
Ideally, they should say exactly what has changed, but even just using them with the words “New recipe” or “New pack size” in a certain font size will alert consumers that they don’t buy exactly the same thing as last time. and prompt them to examine the packaging carefully. Maybe some will be honest enough to say “New worse recipe” or “Now even smaller”.
