French supermarket sticks 'shrinkflation' warnings on food to shame suppliers

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20230916-french-supermarket-sticks-price-warnings-on-food-to-shame-suppliers
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/carrefour-sticks-price-warnings-food-shame-suppliers-2023-09-14/

Should UK stores start doing the same thing?

This has been happening for years in the UK as you notice it with things are smaller than previously but still paying higher prices.

It is interesting what is happening in the crisps world. I note that the regular packs are slowly being phased out in favour of "Grab bags" which are now shrinking and they too are being phased out in favour a larger 70g back which looks twice as big as a grab bag but only has 20 grams more of crisps yet is significantly more expensive.

Yeah it's like you can only get double size bags for triple price

It is interesting what is happening in the crisps world. I note that the regular packs are slowly being phased out in favour of "Grab bags" which are now shrinking and they too are being phased out in favour a larger 70g back which looks twice as big as a grab bag but only has 20 grams more of crisps yet is significantly more expensive.

I don’t get why this is supposed to be “shameful”.

Inflation is a thing. Manufacturers and suppliers have to raise their prices one way or another, be it by increasing the price of the actual item or reducing its size. We’re not still living in the times when your weekly shop cost a couple of shillings.

You could argue it’s underhanded because they try to do it without you realising. But supermarkets already tend to put a “price per kg” or “price per litre” label on whatever it is you’re buying, so you can easily see it anyway.

Consumers can remember what a pack cost them last time more easily than they can remember what the £/kg was last time they bought a pack.

Theres some funny business with the unit pricing too, you get similar products stating £/kg or £/100g seemingly at random.
Cant see any reason for that other than to make it more difficult to remember and compare

Yeah it's like you can only get double size bags for triple price

I think it is much more subtle than that. You get a much bigger back which is a little bit more expensive but it doesn't have that much more crisps than the smaller bag is replaces. Then over time, you reduce the size of the packaging whilst keeping the price the same and reducing the amount of crisps inside.

I think majority of supermarkets are aiming for multi bags of crisps rather than single packs as there are more multi bags than single packs on shelves......

Consumers can remember what a pack cost them last time more easily than they can remember what the £/kg was last time they bought a pack.

Theres some funny business with the unit pricing too, you get similar products stating £/kg or £/100g seemingly at random.
Cant see any reason for that other than to make it more difficult to remember and compare

Then I'd suggest supermarkets don't need to put "shrinkflation" labels on things just to shame suppliers. They'd just need to provide better £/kg type information so customers can see, understand and remember it more easily (instead of e.g. confining it to the small print).

Customers aren't going to remember the unit / £ information to every product they buy, even if they buy it regularly. New customers won't know historic information either.

I think more supermarkets should add these labels. I don't want to spend more money for less, I want to avoid brands that do this.

Each to their own I suppose. I personally wouldn't care how much the product used to cost before; obviously prices per unit will always increase with inflation on the whole, so it's kind of irrelevant to me. I'd just care about how much it costs now and whether that's still a price I'm willing to pay.

I'd be more interested in seeing information like how much competitor supermarkets or competitor brands are charging for an equivalent item.