Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Shrinkflation,
a term combining “shrink” and “inflation”, meaning charging the same for less (1), is hardly new. The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics (ONS) already recorded
the following phenomenon, between Sept. 2015 and June 2017, as reported below:
We identified 206 products that shrank in size and 79 that increased in size between September 2015 and June 2017. There was no trend in the frequency of size changes over this period, which included the EU referendum. The majority of products experiencing size changes were food products and in 2016, we estimated that between 1% and 2.1% of food products in our sample shrank in size, while between 0.3% and 0.7% got bigger. We also observed that prices tended not to change when products changed size, consistent with the idea that some products are undergoing "shrinkflation." [Payne, 2019 - UK ONS]
What is
perhaps more current is the resurgence of the term (and phenomenon) post-pandemic.
Indeed, if you have a hunch that your cereal box, or chocolate bar, appears a bit
smaller, this is no gaslighted figment of your imagination. The product you are purchasing
may very well have been downsized or shrunk. You might even search "downsizing" at the Edgard Dworsky(2) Consumer Advocacy website Mouseprint.org,
which more generally seeks to expose “the strings and catches
buried in the fine print”. A whole section of the website is dedicated to showing you many products that have definitely changed sizes, year in, year out.
“Beware!”, as Rosalsky (2021) warns. Shrinking products is a stealthy way of increasing prices (without changing prices). Manufacturers resort to downsizing when are facing pricing pressures, such as shortages. Sometimes, when there is inflation (higher pricing) and downsizing, then the increase in prices is in fact double.
Below, images of Costco paper towels, which have shrunk (for real) from 160 sheets to a roll 140 (courtesy of Mouseprint.org).
References
Bernstein, J. and E. Tedeschi (April 12, 2021). Pandemic Prices: Assessing Inflation in the Months and Years Ahead. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/04/12/pandemic-prices-assessing-inflation-in-the-months-and-years-ahead/
Hébel, P. (July 14, 2021) Chéri, j’ai rétréci les courses ! Plus pernicieux que l’inflation, la grande réduction des quantités ? https://atlantico.fr/article/decryptage/cheri-j-ai-retreci-les-courses---plus-pernicieux-que-l-inflation-la-grande-reduction-des-quantites-pascale-hebel
Staff (Feb. 10, 2015) Rétréciflation ou comment avoir moins pour le même prix. NLTO Magazine d'actualité politique, économique et internationale. https://www.nlto.fr/Retreciflation--ou-comment-avoir-moins-pour-le-meme-prix_a657.html
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