Go to other stores and find cheaper lesser brand alternatives. It's worth it.
Shrinkflation
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.
What is Shrinkflation?
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
Community Rules
- Posts must be about shrinkflation, skimpflation or another related topic where a company has reduced their offering without reducing the price.
- The product must be a household item. No cars, industrial equipment, etc.
- You must provide a comparison between the old and new products, what changed and evidence of that change. If possible, also provide the prices and their currency, as well as purchase dates.
- Meta posts are allowed, but must be tagged using the [META] prefix
n.b.: for moderation purposes, only posts in English or in French are accepted.##
Good advice, thank you. I think I am at that point
When Loblaws and Frito Lay were in talks, and there were big empty shelves all across the chip department, we found that the No Name and Compliments brand were perfectly sufficient to get us by. Now I won't buy anything else unless it's a special request. And we're eating fewer chips. Win win for everyone except the greedy fuckers who made me think about this topic so hard.
I actually prefer the Selection brand of all-dress chips. They're less oily than ruffles, and they're often on sale for around 1.50 a bag.
I think I have a bag of Selection salt and vinegar on the go and they’re pretty good.
Gotta add that if the political right wing had their way since the beginning, there probably would not be any objective indicator of weight that corporations could not fudge, let alone things like salt, fat and sugar.
Even so, corporations find the way to lie and mislead in any way they can, regarding consumers as suckers.
For example, use two types of sugar so neither exceed the red flag threshold, and slap a "low sugar" label on the box/bag/can.
"So, technically, we're not lying, see? It's low on this one, and low on that one. Not guilty! See?"
Never seen that flavor before in the US, now I want to try some. I just checked the grocery and the standard bag here is still 8oz (around 225g). We are getting screwed on price here though, name brand chips have basically doubled in price the past few years. We now buy whatever happens to be on sale rather than what we want.
From what I know, all dressed and ketchup chips are (2) popular Canadian flavours that are rare in the US. I hear you about feeling screwed by the prices!
Yeah I got ketchup Lays in Toronto for the first time and regret not bringing more home.
All dressed is better than Ketchup and Ketchup is really good so thats saying a lot
Thanks for the tip, we are visiting Montreal and Quebec City this summer so I will keep an eye out.
I don't eat those any more but I miss the red. Red is a satisfying colour to have on a potato chip :P
Uncle Ray's caries all dressed now. Still hard to find, but they are in the US and sell farther south than the other brands.
Unrelated but Canada chip flavors far surpass US ones. Ketchup chips absolutely slap.
I hate those
All Dressed are nice though
Wait USA doesn't get ketchup chips? That's so depressing.
Almost $5 for 200g? Are they selling potato chips or street drugs? 😂
You're @#$%ing right. Regular chips-- ingredients: potatoes, canola oil, salt. And they're selling it right out in the open at that price 🤭🤫
Ruffles has been out of my price range for like a decade now. That is the best flavor though, but you can't find it hardly anywhere in the US. I usually just buy store brand chips because it's too expensive.
We buy them at the dollar store, as well as other name brand products. Usually half price compared to Loblaws
Last time I got Ruffles at Dollarama they had made those bags even smaller than 200g.
Their stocks vary. lately our has had the big bags. And I used to get lays low salt for half price of going the the grocery store. But I accidentally found this brand there and they are delicious. https://coveredbridgechips.com/en
All Dressed is my favorite flavor by far.