The Great 'shrinking food and other items' Hunt

PetulantPixie

I used to buy Mornflakes chocolate filled cereal (bit like Kellog's Krave) from Ocado. The weight hasn't changed-however they used to always be 500g on offer at £1, RRP £1.50. Then one day, they had a bigger box with 500g VALUE PACK across the top on a big red banner, and they were £2.20!!

stormclouds

I bought a box of 5 when they were on offer at half price and thought it felt wrong. Then I noticed the calories per bar had dropped from 155 to 140 which was odd. It wasn't until I got them home and looked at the box that I knew for certain. 32g when they used to be 35g.

fionajbanana

The Bernard Matthews packs of turkey breast chunks in different flavours like BBQ, Tikka etc have dropped by 15g from 155g to 140g. Last year they were £1 each, now double in price or 2 for £3.

Refuse to buy them now.

fionajbanana

The companies that make the tins of chocolates, people keep the tins to put things in so its so we have proof of the old sizes/weights

twigpig

How about kleenex tissues too.

These are being seen at 95p-£1 for the classic cube, and were never seen at this price before. Might have something to do with them now only having 56 sheets in a box, and I'm fairly certain that there used to be 90......................

John_Pierpoint

nataliej wrote: »

Proof that tins of Celebrations chocolates are shrinking.

Tin from 2000 - 1600 grams:


Tin from 2011 - 855 grams:

Why sell chocolates, when you can sell air and packaging materials ?

I wonder if the government statisticians who create the fairy story about inflation, have allowed for this racket.

muddlemand

This must be an old trick, I reckon. We lived abroad for two years, 1993-95, and coming back I noticed a lot of suchlike which I wouldn't have noticed gradually. The one I remember was that food tins had been almost impossible to crush, and weren't - thinner metal being used - and similarly the plastic that 2-litre cola bottles were made of had got so thin, it was difficult to unscrew the lid without squashing the top of the bottle. OK, that's not the contents shrinking, but I think chocolate bars were smaller - narrower, so it didn't really show. (You can tell what I spent my pennies on back then!)

At the time I just thought it's a clever way for a retailer to make economies. After all you still feel as if you've eaten a choccie bar whether it's 50g or 46g, the experience isn't different. And of course they avoided having to "confess" the price was going up - which presumably loses sales, if the extra 1p or 2p goes on a small item compared with its rivals sitting next to it. Inflation has always happened.

Different brands of butter, for example, give you 200g instead of 250g, that's not shrinking but competition - that's sneakier in my view. Another reason to be on guard as shoppers.

spinynorman

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the most obvious con - Milk!
I buy my milk in 4-pint containers (2.27l) for £1, but many shops now are switching to 2l containers for the same price!

Mark my words, it won't be long before the traditional pint goes to just 500ml instead of 568 mil...:(

John_Pierpoint

The observation about the thinning of packaging should be a good thing for both our wallets and the planet, but it reminds me of the work done by the Sunday Times in the 1960s:
The really big money comes to the producer who can cut the quantity of a product subject to a specific tax not an ad-valorum tax. To translate, VAT is an ad-valorum tax, the Sunday Times highlighted specific tax on tobacco, the favourite of all tax evasion fraudsters. The cigarette companies were putting a lot of time effort and money into shrinking cigarettes without the punter noticing. As the tax is on the weight of the tobacco they were getting a 7 times multiplier by by stealing 8 pence from the customer and getting to keep all of it, when 7 pence had been destined to become public money.

Has anyone noticed something similar happening now with tobacco drink and road fuel ? The pint bottle of beer is almost universally now the 500ml bottle and several spirits have reduced their % of alcohol, most famously Gordons Gin.

Gordon's is sold in several different strengths depending on the market. Until as recently as 1992 the ABV in the UK was 40%, but it was then reduced from 40% to 37.5%, purportedly to bring Gordon's gin into line with other white spirits such as white rum and vodka, but in reality to save money[9] (note that the other leading brands of gin in the UK, Beefeater gin and Bombay Sapphire, are both 40% ABV in the UK). In the US, the strength is still 40% ABV. In continental Europe and in some duty free stores a 47.3% ABV version is sold. In New Zealand and Australia, as of 2011, it is sold at 37.2% alcohol by volume.[10]

martparkes

I have found that Bakers dog food has also decreased in size, and I just about caught it before I brought! They used to sell 1.5kg packets, and now they are 1.35kg, and 3kg bags which are now 2.7kg, I think the 6kg bags are now 5kg so losing a whole 1kg and they are still charging the same! Same size box/bag though which is deceiving, and in small print near the bottom you will find 'new size!' but its the same price as before in Tesco, and ive seen the new size charged at a higher price in other shops, I dont mind things decreasing in size if the packaging does too!