There's been a lot of news recently about inflation and how it's affecting food prices. (Have you tried to buy romaine lettuce recently?) Prices have been going up but there is also subtler forms of price increases happening – what's called shrinkflation, where the price remains the same but the product shrinks in size. I most recently noticed this when I bought some Campbell's soup, and the can had shrunk by about 10 percent, but I've seen it with many other products (bags of potato chips, dishwasher detergent, packages of bacon).
The New York Times just published a long article (gifted outside the paywall) about Edgar Dworksky, who has made a career of tracking shrinkflation and skimpflation (where the packaging remains the same but there is less product or it's watered down).
Consumer product companies have been using this strategy for decades. And their nemesis, Mr. Dworsky, has been following it for decades. He writes up his discoveries on his website, mouseprint.org, a reference to the fine print often found on product packaging. Print so tiny “only a mouse could read,” he says.
He writes about shrinkflation in everything — tuna, mayonnaise, ice cream, deodorant, dish soap — alongside other consumer advocacy work on topics like misleading advertising, class-action lawsuits and exaggerated sale claims.
One recent Mouse Print report explored toilet paper shrinkflation. “Virtually every brand of toilet paper has been downsized over the years,” Mr. Dworsky wrote, documenting more than a decade of toilet paper shrinkage.
It's a good article and has made me more aware of how companies are manipulating consumers. I highly recommend looking at his mouseprint.org website. If anyone knows of an equivalent Canadian-focused site, please post it in a comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment