The Great 'Shrinking Food' Hunt

ShakeyStacey

The issue of shriking creme eggs actually has a funny story behind it. This is not a recent change, it happened a few years ago (so no blaming it on the current economy!)
When the creme eggs shrunk, people noticed and started writing to cadbury in their hundreds! Cadbury replied by putting a note on their website "Creme Eggs have not shrunk, your hands have gotten bigger". They got away with this for a while, until some guy found an old creme egg in the back of his freezer and compared it to a new one. Sure enough the old egg was bigger. There's a video of it on youtube. Cadbury had to come clean.
I don't mind so much that the eggs shrunk, I'm sure Cadbury had their reasons, but really, LYING about it! That's just plain out of order.

newkitchenfund

A similar wheeze is to sell low fat or light versions of margarine for the same price (or even slightly higher) than the standard version. For example, Original Flora, Light and extra light all cost about £2.29 per kg. Yet the fat content is 59%, 38% and 18% respectively. What makes up the remaining 82%? Mostly water!

Andyc24_uk

I'm working in South Korea at the moment, and like in seemingly most countries, tubes of Pringles can be found in virtually every corner shop. Up until a couple of months ago, they were in the same size (230g) can that you regularly find in the UK, and had a Pringles logo on the seal. Then, around the end of February, they mysteriously shrank - the tubes are now smaller in diameter and look out of proportion, and the weight is now down to 200g. Initially I thought the shop was importing fake Pringles, as the packaging has changed slightly and the seal is now plain white - but the new size cans are now everywhere, in every store. I was in Japan last weekend and saw the same thing there as well - so it's probably only a matter of time until European Pringles get downsized too

kingnutter

These shrink by two inches in diameter recently. I know because I found an old one(!) and measured them side by side.

I posted actual visual evidence on my own website. I haven't been on the board long enough to post a link but if for any bizarre reason you want proof, visit kingnutter com and click on "soapbox" in the left hand navigation bar.

babyshoes

This is the most insidious form of inflation! I do wonder who is driving this... The prices stay the same while the packs get smaller, so the government can claim inflation is low, yet they are probably not actually comparing 'like for like'... Grrrrr!

Petlamb

See, I can see the logic of the companies involved here. I can't remember which one it was but I remember one company saying a while ago that ultimately, the choice for them had been either to up the price, or reduce the size. The upshot was that they got complaints when the price went up, so reduced the size.

However, what tends to grate is the fact it feels underhand, sneaky even. And I think it certainly should be included in the RPI! (But I suspect it isn't.)

anythingwilldo

Aldi have reduced the amount of alcohol in their "Saint Etienne" lager from 5% to 4.8% and their "Galahad" lager has dropped from 4.2% to 3.8%. The price hasn't increased, but they are making more profit through paying less tax. I don't begrudge them making as much money as they can, but the taste has really suffered.:mad:

tfbundy

not exactly food but family related most nappy manufacturers have started putting less in their economy boxes quite often 3 or 4 less

vexpez

MELONS, used to be the size of melons, now they're the size of grapefruits ! and cost the earth. I think we're still living in rip-off Britain.

kittykitten

I know it's already been mentioned, but creme eggs are definitely smaller than they used to be - a friend of my parents' knitted me one of those really cute creme egg cosy (yellow wolly chick thing) and the creme eggs used to fit it wonderfully, now it's really loose on an egg! The chick hasn't grown, so logical conclusions people?....