So I had to buy two of them to get as much as I used to get with one. Each one of these now cost $12. The total ounces of salmon you see here used to cost $7.
A community about companies who sneakily adjust their product instead of the price in the hopes that consumers won't notice.
We notice. We feel ripped off. Let's call out those products so we can shop better.
Shrinkflation is a term often coined to refer to a product reducing in size or quality while the price remains the same or increases.
Companies will often claim that this is necessary due to inflation, although this is rarely the case. Over the course of the pandemic, they have learned that they can mark up inelastic goods, which are goods with an intangible demand, such as food, as much as they want, and consumers will have no choice but to purchase it anyway because they are necessities.
From Wikipedia:
In economics, shrinkflation, also known as the grocery shrink ray, deflation, or package downsizing, is the process of items shrinking in size or quantity, or even sometimes reformulating or reducing quality, while their prices remain the same or increase. The word is a portmanteau of the words shrink and inflation.
[...]
Consumer advocates are critical of shrinkflation because it has the effect of reducing product value by "stealth". The reduction in pack size is sufficiently small as not to be immediately obvious to regular consumers. An unchanged price means that consumers are not alerted to the higher unit price. The practice adversely affects consumers' ability to make informed buying choices. Consumers have been found to be deterred more by rises in prices than by reductions in pack sizes. Suppliers and retailers have been called upon to be upfront with customers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation
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Shrinkflation by greedy companies combined with our de-facto oligopoly of grocery stores trying to convince us that prices must go up because they’re barely scraping by.
I want to see how the new tax credit for groceries pans out. But it feels like a bit of a (maybe necessary?) Band-aid.
I would absolutely LOVE to see the government finally tackle the oligopoly issue with grocery chains and telecoms.
A bit of a tangent. I had a Bell rep knock at my door today, nice guy. But I told him that their deals are predatory, the way they lock in discounts but not the rate. Then they up the price while you’re locked in, effectively nullifying your discount. He told me, at least in my area that they are supposedly offering real rate lock ins. But it doesn’t fix the root of the problem spurred by blocking competition and blatantly predatory and misleading “deals”. I despise telecom companies in Canada.
Edit: I wanna add, it doesn’t have to be like this! I lived abroad for a while and any time essential groceries went up in price, people got mad and the government curbed it realllll quickly. And telecoms offered true unlimited for reasonable rates. It can be done. We have good infrastructure in much of the country (sorry to those in mega rural areas), now let’s get some legislation to manage and/or break up these oligopolies. I’m no politician so I don’t know what exactly is the best solution, I only know that it needs to happen.