The Great 'Shrinking Food' Hunt

mateyboy

I have a theory on all these products which have shrunk .....

The goverment is saying the consumer price index is running at say 3.4 %

Ok Ill go along with that .. However if the food conglomerates only raise their prices by say by the rate of inflation or less it looks like we have low inflation .

When we all know the cost of food has now increased by more than 10 or 15 %

Yes in reality the prices are the same but as we are all aware we get less product for our pennies.

The Suppliers / growers get squeezed by the bully boys at the supermarkets
to lower their prices, we the consumer get less product for our money the goverments happy because prices look quite stable. The supermarkets profits well do I need to say more...... greedy I think

but we all know we have been mugged off.

What do you think??

ferdyb

Supermarkets can get the manufacturers to print the prices they want on packages.

But the manufacturers themselves will be doing the shrinking, won't they ? It means altering all the making and packing machines. Then these shrunken packs will appear in all shops, not just s/markets, right?

So is this phenomenon driven by the manufacturers or the s/markets ?
Perhaps even Tesco's haven't noticed, themselves !

If they are both in on this thievery, does that not make it some sort of a cartel or something. It seems like taking money by deception or false pretenses surely ?

mateyboy

I think the supermarkets started it with their own branded label products
But maybe they was both in it together now there's a thought !

Whoever started it .... It is us the consumer who is paying more for less product .

Somebody should look into this it is A BIG CON

ferdyb

Mateyboy, re your price index thing - surely the government measure price against weight. Don't they?
And if all our portions are getting smaller, how come the nation isn't getting thinner?

Ellie2758

Farley's Rusks - smaller and not half as nice. I expect they have reduced the sugar content.

Did anyone else have Delrosa syrup given to them as a child? No wonder my teeth are mainly fillings...................:(

babs2008

ShakeyStacey wrote: »

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.

Never mind hands getting bigger. I remember being able to eat the centre out of the Creme Egg with a spoon (I didn't like the chocolate bit). Don't think the spoons have gotten bigger since then, but they don't fit now. Everything gets smaller, creme eggs, waggon wheels, curly wurly's...

MitchMcK

MitchMcK wrote: »

A year ago I was buying 10 Turkey Dinosaurs in a pack. A few months ago it reduced to 8 in a pack. Last week the pack contained 6!
What is Bernard Matthews doing to the Dinosaurs!
(The dinosaurs also seem to be smaller than they used to be....)

Tonight I gave my kids Turkey Dinosaurs again - I was shocked, the pack size has dropped to 5 (yes five!) and they were all T-rexes, no Stegasaurus or Triceratops!

little_acorn_2

I've no proof but am sure that tea bags have less tea in them these days. I still make tea in a pot and where two bags used to make a nice cuppa, I now need three of same brand. I think manufacturers have cottoned on to the fact that most people use a tea bag in a cup so only make bags strong enough for a one mug dunk. I expect my tea bags to go the extra mile and provide several top-ups! Incidentally, no idea why but Clipper organic are cheaper than Clipper everyday ones.

nuttywoman

Last week we bought Shredded Wheat & Snowballs and could`nt believe how small the food was !!

llanwrst2

Whils walking around Costco I thought I'd pick up a Maxi bag of Cadbury mini treats and there alongside each other were 4 boxes of said product - 2 stated 50 items ber bag at 730g(?ish) and 2 boxes stated 45 items per bag at 690g (?ish). both called Maxi bags and same ticket and price for both. Thats a 10% drop.:mad:

Dont suppose it will get any better!!