In times of runaway inflation, there is a more insidious tactic some manufacturers are using to maximize profitability.
Shrinkflation.
When former Black Press columnist Deb Meissner first brought up this concept, I thought she was being clever.
Not that Deb isn’t clever, she is, but this is actually a documented thing. Instead of raising prices, manufacturers provide less of the product.
There are plenty of documented examples, but most manufacturers are reluctant (to say the least) to admit it.
At least one company has, however. Oregon-based Tilamook Ice Cream was upfront about its foray into shrinkflation.
“In order to be profitable and support our farmer owners, we had two choices: increase the unit price per carton or reduce the carton size from 56oz to 48oz and keep the price the same,” Tilamook said on its website.
They chose the latter reasoning it would be more palatable to their customers to get less than to pay more.
Perhaps even more insidious than shrinkflation, however, is another practice dubbed skimpflation. This signifies the downgrading of ingredients to make a product cheaper to produce.
This is far worse than shrinkflation because according to the website Retail Insider, it often results “in discernible disparities in taste and texture.”
Retail Insider cites one example of Cheez Whiz, which used to have cheese as its top ingredient. That has been replaced by “modified dairy products.” I thought my Cheez Whiz felt and tasted different.
I have my own suspicions about a celebration trail mix product that used to be one of my favourite snacks. My disclaimer here is that I have no actual evidence. I tried to find the old packaging on the internet Wayback Machine to compare it to the one I recently bought, but to no avail. I will refrain from actually naming the company.
Dozens of companies make celebration mix, which is a combination of nuts (primarily peanuts), raisins and candy-coated chocolate (think Smarties/M&Ms).
In any event, I was impressed that this product had retained its pre-COVID price tag despite spiralling food costs.
When I opened it, though, the first thing I noticed was that the ratio of nuts to raisins seemed to be way off. It appeared raisins had become the predominant ingredient by far.
No offence to raisins intended, but they are the worst part of the mix and obviously the cheapest. I found myself having to go out and buy a bag of mixed nuts to add to it just to bring the ration back into alignment.
Whether they actually changed the ratios or I am misremembering doesn’t mattatter, I won’t buy it again
which brings up the fine line that manufacturers tread
How much can you get away with tinkering with the size and/or composition of your product before you just start losing customers.