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

Based.

I know everyone uses this word now, but I’ll never think of anything except Nazis circa 2016.
- :(
  I'm sorry for triggering that association. A lot of internet culture has been co-opted by those jerks. I didn't mean it that way.
- I've tried to get my thinking to update, but I too just think Nazi when I see it.
- It's been an internet thing for long before 2016 (at least mid 00s in my memory), so I don't associate it with them.
- I've slowly realized that many people on the internet use it casually, but like you, I always assumed they were alt-right (new main right) or libertarian at a minimum for a long time.
- It was taken away from the alt-right, this is a good thing.
- Sorry, but that's on you. The word shouldn't be associated with them in your head because then that would give them a W.
  Leftists everywhere use that word as well.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Based on what..?
- Based.

I would LOVE to see more of this. Looking at you GATORADE, with your half-inch-deep plastic rim on the bottom and new hourglass bottle shape. 32oz sized bottles are 28oz now and MORE expensive. Fuck shrinkflation to death.

Yeah for some reason drinks seem the most effected by shrinkflation, I hate going to the drinks aisles these days because everything seems so overpriced, even just regular tap/spring water
- And the margins are so large on drinks already that they're just trying to scrape even more money from you
- Potato chips have the same, you can't know how much is in them because they blow them up with gasses in order to "preserve" them.

If only smart glass is as popular as mobile phones. When Google introduced their smart glass, I dreamt of a day when a price history overlay is displayed when looking at a barcode, like how Keepa is doing for Amazon.

I also like German price display which has effective price, as in Eur per liter for drinks, making it dead simple to compare products. A smart glass will make it available everywhere.

Back to Carrefour, I really like that they are pushing pro consumer actions. However, we all know too well that they won't do the same when it's their products which are shrinking. Still better than no action though.

Afaik the base price display is requiered by EU law, atleast Czechia got them too on my last vacation.
- it's so good too, you can cut through all the bullshit and simply check if per kg/liter It's cheaper or not.
  even though for a lot of stuff it's simple math. 100g you just 10x, 250 you 4 x the price, 200g you 5x.
  but there are lots of stuff that's packaged in weird amounts. 230g yogurt, 180g tofu.
  you don't want to break out the calculator for shopping.
Price per litre / kg etc is in Australia too
- It is but it does nothing to curb shrinkflation in my experience.
  I'm trying to think of a way to mandate this kind of notification but I can't think of a way to do it that could be both clear and mandated. Perhaps if the price per changes there needs to be a history listed on the label.
  One big problem with it is that in the short-term it discourages sales, so groceries aren't incentivised to do it except as a stunt like this, so they won't want the notices to be prominent. Ultimately they still want you to buy the stuff because then they make money.
USA has unit prices as well. Can’t imagine shopping without that.
Wait a decade and AR might be popping off
- Google said that a decade ago…and it was said the decade before that…

I'd love to see this naming and shaming becoming a standard. I want to know if the product I'm buying has changed and while I try to do this myself, it can be tricky to keep track of all the products I buy and it's not like I'm scanning the exact weight every time and memorizing it, just that it's generally the same weight. These scumbag companies are always trying to sneak by all these changes over time, it's great to finally get a spotlight shining on it. If some sort of legislation can be made to force companies to note changes in products made in the last 6 months on the label, that would be great.

I want to know if the product I’m buying has changed and while
Makes me think of a local git diff since your last purchase(s). See at a glance if it has changed, and what has changed.
Exactly my thought for a long time. A law which mandates companies to...I don't know...put on a label, occupying at least 1/3 of the whole packaging with giant red/white font to say at least for 3-6 months: "The net weight/contenct was reduced by 15%."
A simple QR code should do the trick. People can even make apps for tracking the changes.
- maybe even a barcode, some sort of universal product code that apps could read easily

Man, the French really don't fuck around, do they?

Though the article says that Carrefour themselves do it for their house brands, so does that mean they'll also apply it to themselves? XD

Uhhh, no. They are gonna shame others, but not themselves. Capitalism my dude.
- Tbf, their stated purpose is to bring attention to the price discrepancy on diminished products. I would assume they believe their pricing is fair in that respect.
Yeah, no... Carrefour conglomerate is peak capitalism, so I can only assume this action is a way to push people to their own brand stuff.

It appears to be in some mystic arcane language but I have been able to translate it:

This product has seen its liters

REDUCED

and the price charged by our supplier

INCREASE

WE COMMIT TO RENEGOTIATING THIS RATE

https://i.imgur.io/lXtfGmA_d.webp

Carrefour are fucking thieves and their own low-price brands are also shrinkflationated carcinogenic crap.

They don't really have anything to teach.

After seeing so, so many french brands and retailers remain in Russia after that country invaded Ukraine (the rest of it, as they occupied Crimea already), I just started assuming all large french companies are complete total shits and have been boycotting them since then.
Were I live there a lot of large french retailers, so this actually has made a significant difference in my purchasing habits.
- I don't think any company gets "really big" playing by the rules.
- Can you name a single large company that is not complete total shit ? Because I can't

don't forget the price in retail include the destruction cost. they are winning on both side.

I know only one case where this shrinkflation thing was stopped - one beer company decided to sell 0.4l cans, because "that's what the customers want". It turned out pretty fast that wasn't what their customers wanted :)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The French supermarket chain Carrefour has put labels on its shelves this week warning shoppers of “shrinkflation”, the phenomenon where manufacturers reduce pack sizes rather than increase prices.

It has slapped price warnings on products from Lindt chocolates to Lipton iced tea to pressure top consumer goods suppliers Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to tackle the issue in advance of much-anticipated contract talks.

Since Monday, Carrefour has been putting stickers on products that have shrunk in size but cost more even after raw materials prices have eased, to rally consumer support as retailers prepare to face the world’s biggest brands in negotiations due to start soon and end by 15 October.

“Obviously, the aim in stigmatising these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to rethink their pricing policy,” Stefen Bompais, the director of client communications at Carrefour, said in an interview.

The Carrefour chief executive, Alexandre Bompard, who also heads the retail industry lobby group FDC, has repeatedly said consumer goods companies are not cooperating in efforts to cut the price of thousands of staples despite a fall in the cost of raw materials.

In this he is backed by the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, who in June summoned 75 big retailers and consumer groups to his ministry urging them to cut prices.

The original article contains 494 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Good for them. I made tacos for the first time in ages a couple of days ago, and I could not believe the size of the shells now. I would have called them child-sized, they were so small. It's disgusting.

Sounds like you just bought normal sized tortillas, like they use in Mexico. "Child-sized"? Lol.
- Hard taco shells are an American Tex-Mex dish -- they're distinct from tortillas or tostadas
- Do they use hard shells in Mexico?
- Motherfucker, have you never had a big ass burrito? The real Mexicans make their own tortillas, and if they feel like it, they'll make one big enough to be used as a bedroll.

Geat idea! There's no reason this couldn't be done everywhere by citizens with access to sticker printing services... I've spotted a few products myself in the past year and wouldn't be against sticking some labels on them to warn my fellow shoppers :)

Reduflation

To be fair, most likely of these ‘foods’ look like complete junk. Over-processed shit. Huge mark-ups on what amounts to packaging and cheap fat/sugar/industrial flavours.

Baby formula was listed. The shrinkflation has affected more than just junk food.
- Yeah I understand but the highlight items seem to be mostly crap.
Lurpak shrank all their butter by 20%. In looks it's barely noticeable. In reality it's a 25% price hike.

Shrinkflation is largely a myth. Items do not shrink relative to inflation, in fact the majority of claimed products are larger now than they were 50 years ago.

People often cite certain chocolate bar sizes with comparing the size today to that from the 90s. It's not a fair comparison and not an example of shrinkflation. Mars bars have dropped 20% in size since the 90s but still are 4% larger today then when they originally came out.

Neither are small boxes of cereal. When I worked at Wal-Mart 9 years ago those same thin boxes gave me grief when putting them out on the shelves.

i see milk tasting almost like water like skimmed milk, as well as some juices i used to be able to buy, fillings in sweets like crackers and wafers being almost as thin as paper or outright stopping being sold and replaced by cookies using drops for a filling, yogurt being replaced by "milk drink" (yogurt is thicker and slower to flow down, i can tell the difference, but the label also changes, idk the english term for "bebida láctea"), a lot of sweets and bags reducing from 800g down to 600g, down to 400g while keeping the same price, packaging turning opaque and non-transparent, potato chips and other salt foods being filled 1/5th, down from 1/3rd, even instant noodles going from 150g down to 80g in the past decade.
only things that aren't changed as much is what i know to be the very basic things that people in here uses and cooks every day, that being rice (5kg), beans (5 and 1kg), pasta (500g all variants), sugar and salt (1kg), etc.
mostly depends on the country you are in (i'm in Brazil), but the point is that it doesn't stop at the chocolate bars.
- Milk is generally a regulated good and cannot be watered down like that. The same is true with all dairy. It's sad that you live in a country that does not offer such food protection.
  Chips have always been filled like that. The nitrogen in the bag keeps the food fresh and acts as a way to keep them from damage via transport. Lays had reduced thier weight though, which ended up being 5 less chips per bag. The bags are still almost twice the size they were than 35 years ago.
  In Canada the most popular brand of Ramen is Mr. Noodles. It's been 85g for the last 20 years, maybe more.

I get it's to shame the brands. But do the French not have unit prices? That's how I determine the better prices among different brands regardless of package size.

Unit prices shows you the cost per g or ml. This would show changes to historical pricing that you may not notice otherwise.
A product could still be cheapest per unit or in the middle but the increase wasn't noticed as they changed the packaging and volume of the product. Strange sizes also make comparison difficult without the actual ticket.
Why not both? This just makes it easier to notice at a glance. We should celebrate whatever wins we can get as consumers.
You mean if they display price per gram/kg/oz/ml etc? It's irrelevant whether they do or not, that's not the point. They are comparing the price against the same product before , not against other similar products from other brands. It doesn't matter if Lipton Iced Tea is the cheapes iced tea brand per litre, it matters that they reduced the product size compared to what they used to
Unit prices are easy to remember when you buy a single product. I bet you know the price of gas per unit immediately. What was the price of Pepsi per liter today? What was the price of Coke per liter? There are dozens and dozens of soda products alone you would have to memorize. And that’s just soda.
I applaud a store using its data to communicate to customers how prices have changed. We should do this everywhere.
- They'll probably only do it to pull a stunt like this to improve their negotiating power like they are here, because if they left it up all the time it would discourage sales.
That method is very useful but it wouldn't help you notice if every single company making a specific kind of product increased their prices the same amount (or reduced quantity)
They do, but the shelf price is the most prominent, given that this is what you'll pay at the counter.