The Great 'shrinking food and other items' Hunt

Ecolib2

I buy Fairy conditioner. The packaging design had recently changed but I hadn't thought much about it until I saw the 2 versions together on a shelf and the price was the same but the cost per unit wasn't. The bottles looked the same size. On closer inspection the old version held 1.19L but the new one 1.05L. The new bottle is opaque so you cannot see the level of liquid in the bottle!

od244051

I work in essential retail (not a supermarket) - sell food, beauty, health and cleaning/laundry products. When we open a case of something which has a new design - we check the older packaging on the shelf. 90% of the time new label means change of size and 99.9% of the time, newer one is smaller.

We don't put any of the newer size out until the shelf has been emptied. If its a dated item like biscuits, we put reduced to clear stickers to shift the older size quicker esp if the date is nearly up.

The other week, I was in Lidl and as one of the Lidl plus coupons was for jams, spreads , peanut butter range. Found an older jar which also scanned 6p cheaper than the price on the SEL.

20aday

Elmlea Single and Double Cream was 287ml, it's now 270ml.

briskbeats

Aussie Hair shampoo and conditioner reduced from 400ml to 350ml. As Sainsbury’s had some of the bigger bottles for 50p. Missed out on the shampoo 

aerostar

Tesco "NEW" Chicken Jalfrezi  (TIN)
I liked the previous recipe - chicken was nice and mostly in strips, but this "NEW" version of
Tesco tinned Chicken Jalfrezi now 8 grams lighter and 5% less chicken, source not as nice as original one and chicken in chunks..
Needles to say...price has stayed the same !!
Thought will have to see if the water content is displayed and if that has increased.

GaleSF63

aerostar said:

Tesco "NEW" Chicken Jalfrezi  (TIN)
I liked the previous recipe - chicken was nice and mostly in strips, but this "NEW" version of
Tesco tinned Chicken Jalfrezi now 8 grams lighter and 5% less chicken, source not as nice as original one and chicken in chunks..
Needles to say...price has stayed the same !!
Thought will have to see if the water content is displayed and if that has increased.

This has happened with a lot of Tesco tinned meals - Sweet and Sour Chicken, Vegetable curry, and others, all reduced from 400grams to 392grams for the same price. I haven't bought any of the 392grams yet so not able to compare ingredients or comment on taste. 

Barny1979

20aday said:

Cadbury Fingers have shrunk, they were 138g and weigh 114g now. 

When I was a kid in 80s/90s a packet of chocolate fingers was a full 2 layers of biscuits in neat rows, nowadays it's about 3/4 that look like they've been in a car crash!

General_Grant

I don't know whether Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart has been mentioned already.
I bought one today and did think it was smaller than when I last bought one (probably a couple of years ago!).

I like to keep track of my calorie intake and so was making a note of what constitutes a portion.

The whole tart weighs 280g so they give the standard 100g figures and then what I take to be a single portion which they describe as "1/8th of tart (38g)".
My primary school arithmetic tells me one-eighth of 280g is 35g.
They do translate the 100g values to those for 38g not 35g.

So I assume the tart used to weigh 304g (perhaps 300g) and they have to mark the box with the correct total weight but have forgotten to adjust the portion values to match the reduction in total weight of a tart.

Any way, that's about an 8% reduction in size.

Looking on the bright size, I can have a portion of tart but consume fewer calories, sugar, etc than before.  (And of course that would be their justification for the size change.)

maman

General_Grant said:

I don't know whether Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart has been mentioned already.
I bought one today and did think it was smaller than when I last bought one (probably a couple of years ago!).

I like to keep track of my calorie intake and so was making a note of what constitutes a portion.

The whole tart weighs 280g so they give the standard 100g figures and then what I take to be a single portion which they describe as "1/8th of tart (38g)".
My primary school arithmetic tells me one-eighth of 280g is 35g.
They do translate the 100g values to those for 38g not 35g.

So I assume the tart used to weigh 304g (perhaps 300g) and they have to mark the box with the correct total weight but have forgotten to adjust the portion values to match the reduction in total weight of a tart.

Any way, that's about an 8% reduction in size.

Looking on the bright size, I can have a portion of tart but consume fewer calories, sugar, etc than before.  (And of course that would be their justification for the size change.)

Of course, they couldn't just reduce the sugar?? 🤔

Rosa_Damascena

General_Grant said:

I don't know whether Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart has been mentioned already.
I bought one today and did think it was smaller than when I last bought one (probably a couple of years ago!).

I like to keep track of my calorie intake and so was making a note of what constitutes a portion.

The whole tart weighs 280g so they give the standard 100g figures and then what I take to be a single portion which they describe as "1/8th of tart (38g)".
My primary school arithmetic tells me one-eighth of 280g is 35g.
They do translate the 100g values to those for 38g not 35g.

So I assume the tart used to weigh 304g (perhaps 300g) and they have to mark the box with the correct total weight but have forgotten to adjust the portion values to match the reduction in total weight of a tart.

Any way, that's about an 8% reduction in size.

Looking on the bright size, I can have a portion of tart but consume fewer calories, sugar, etc than before.  (And of course that would be their justification for the size change.)

Can you stop at 1/8? I'd easily demolish 1/4 in a sitting, no questions asked.