Shrinkflation: How brands get us to pay more without noticing

The practice in itself isn't new, but it's getting a lot of attention these days. While much of the world is facing inflation, stores and restaurants are managing to charge consumers more by discreetly reducing the quantities of their products. A marketing strategy known as "shrinkflation."

Does the package of cookies you just bought seems to contain fewer cookies than usual? It's probably not the first time you've experienced this phenomenon, which plays games with our perception and has the effect of making us feel like we're in a bizarro universe. But there's no doubt about it these days you're a victim of "shrinkflation" and it's increasingly common.

This term, a combination of the words "shrink" and inflation," refers to a marketing technique that consumer associations have been alerting about for the past ten years, but which has come to the fore recently, as food prices continue to rise.

On social networks, posts denouncing such practices are indeed becoming increasingly numerous, as the technique gets applied to a range of products in supermarkets. Smaller packages of potato chips, bottles of perfume with reduced capacity... Volumes go down but the price of the products remain the same, if not more!

I am always (un)pleasantly surprised when I can find everyday #shrinkflation examples. My go to snack had a 20% decline in quantity but the price was the same (admittedly there's a date shortage!) pic.twitter.com/PFibsu3SZ9
— Eoin McLaughlin (@eoinaldo) July 30, 2022

I love paying 4 bucks for half a bag of chips. #Shrinkflation pic.twitter.com/zisDAdViCq
— Kat Chat of Comixplex (@KatChat19) July 23, 2022

But "shrinkflation" goes beyond supermarket shelves: it is also practiced in restaurants, as demonstrated by a study published in July by recommendation platform Yelp, which found that the number of reviews featuring the word "shrinkflation" is increasing significantly.

For consumers, particularly those who are tightening their belts to stretch their budgets and make ends meet during this period of record levels of inflation, it's an unwelcome practice to say the least.