Only 4 nuggets, and holy hell if that ain't a joke for a drink size! BTW, that's supposed to be sweet tea, but it's bitter as hell..
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
n.b.: for moderation purposes, only posts in English or in French are accepted.##
If you specifically ask for tap water, it's free, and must not be denied.
Health Department doesn't allow tap water from restaurants here. And honestly I don't blame them for that. I mean like, do you want the flying shits?..
If it's that bad, no, I certainly can't blame them. But in places where it's perfectly safe to drink, I don't see why not.
That's nice they're legally forbidden from denying you life saving water, but tap water is ass (even if it's perfectly safe to drink) and should be drunk when you have no other options, not as a pleasurable drink to have with your meal.
And last time I was in Germany (admittedly years at this point) I got free water, but was charged for Ice! That's not my idea of a good non-sugary drink for your meal, ass tap water that might be a little colder than room temp...
Here the free water is well filtered as it often comes from the soda machines own filtering system
There's a lot to like in the EU, but the whole water/ice things has always irked me. It's honestly baffling. You want to discourage people from drinking sugary drinks like soda, but then you make the best alternative, a nice cold glass of filtered water, like some sort of luxury item
Tap water in Germany is perfectly palatable and unless in some large cities, even tastes nice. In fact if you buy bottled water in the store you'll get bottled tap water (just not bottled locally), unless it's some fancy brand like Vittel or Volvic. But those don't come for free no matter where you're at.
And yeah we don't typically use ice in our drinks, unless you order cocktails. Agree it's a bit odd to explicitly charge for it, but I guess if the restaurants pays for ice (usually they don't make it on site), then I can see why they charge for it...
Why the heck would you need 'filtered' water? Tap water is epic in West-EU, the only need for bottles is so you can take it to places where there is no tap. If you live in Utrecht (NL) you get pure Bar-Le-Duc water from the tap!
Sidenote: Never been charged extra for Ice, I also thought icing a soda was cheaper then not for the seller.
Spoken by someone who rates water as the most boring drink on any menu.
Rarely drink bottled water, because the tap water is great where I grew up. I absolutely thought it was weird how much some people drank bottled water. Then I tried Edmonton (Canada) water.
Heck Nestle bottles the tap water from Hope, BC. They claim they filter it, and I'm sure they do, but the municipal water in Hope is great, and I'm sure their purification equipment don't have to do much. Hope isn't even the best municipal water in BC.
Good to hear that if I ever get around to visiting Utrecht I can try some competitive municipal water.