If you’re an avid consumer of retail food products and have been for a long time, you must have noticed this pattern with many products. It’s not just that the prices have risen sneakily over time, but also that the size of the product or some aspect of it keeps shrinking. If you noticed this and were gaslit into thinking that it is just your imagination, you need to keep reading because even US Senator Elizabeth Warren talked about this ‘shrinkflation.’
US Senator Elizabeth Warren Posts About Shrinkflation
In a post recently made on X (formerly known as Twitter), Elizabeth Warren, who is a US Senator, talked about Shrinkflation. She started by mentioning how there are fewer chips in your Doritos bags, fewer biscuits in your Oreo packs and less toilet paper on your roll.
She went on to mention that these weren’t imaginary reductions but rather, a tactic employed by giant corporations to save money. Instead of increasing prices, which they know will impact sales, they siphon off chunks of the products at a glacial pace.
By thus reducing the quantity of the product, they are able to save on costs as the sales remain unchanged. This is because consumers don’t immediately register the reduction in the quantity of the product.
Netizens Share Examples Of This Phenomenon On Social Media
Many Netizens were quick to supplement Warren’s post with a plethora of examples. Perhaps, the most jarring of all was the difference in the Toblerone bar. Many were taken aback by the reduction in sizes that many of the food companies were doing.
One commenter spoke of how the standard size of a cereal box five years from now might look like the small one today. One other commenter stated that this was not just limited to food products. They noticed a difference in Shampoo size as well!
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Have you noticed this phenomenon in the snack items that you regularly consume? How do you feel about it? Let us know in the comments section below!
Cover Image Credits: @TrungTPhan and @ewarren/X (Formerly, Twitter)
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