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Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Right, but the before price is no longer available to me now. When I'm at the grocery store, I have to make decisions on today's prices. My choices are to buy brand A, B, or C. Or I can buy nothing. Or I can go to another store and hope for lower prices.
The company making the product likely has their own costs that have increased, such as increased labor and/or materials. In an inflationary environment, I cannot reasonably expect every company to maintain the same prices indefinitely, the company would then be forced to sell the product at a loss, which would lead to bankruptcy of the company.
Companies could increase prices, and/or decrease quantity arbitrarily to increase profits. But that's where competition with the other brands would keep them in check.
Yes, you are right in what you say but are still missing the point. The point isn't to inform the consumer about the best price for an item now, and it's not to help regulate the price of an item against other similar items. That is not the goal here. If that happens or not is irrelevant.
The point here is to shame a company who is now selling less of their product but at the same price, without making and advertisement about it.
Unlike what you mentioned, a lot of the base costs for production of these items have not increased and or have actually become cheaper, therefore resorting to shrinking the product and not shrinking the price is a morally questionable practice. This is why the name and shame move is happening.
A lot of consumers buy by brand out of habit, and we've seen countless times stories of "I went for my cereals like always, the box looked the same, the price was the same, but it actually weighed a third less and didn't realise until I got home and opened it. Had I realised earlier I would have bought a different brand". So the second objective of this move is to warn the consumer about these changes in value that are not as obvious at a glance.
I hope this helps explain better.
I mean, I understood that part. My first sentence was:
I guess I'm probably more vigilant than most about looking at the unit price, which would reveal these kinds of price changes vs competitors.
I think it's an unreasonable expectation that companies will advertise they've raised prices or shrunk packaging. The shrinkflation is deceptive for sure, but I've just come to expect that's what companies will do, especially in an inflationary environment.
Then if you get it then why you insist on talking competitors? I don't see how they are that much relevant here