614
France, doing the right thing
Producers always tout and advertise when they put more into the package, but fail to let us know when they reduce the contents
This is common sense
We recently had a local candy brand advertise that the packaging has gotten smaller, but still contained the same amount. So I guess that they over time had removed enough pieces, that the box started to look suspiciously empty, and they then shrank the box to make it look fuller
Brazil did this years ago. We see in the package “new weight, from X to Y, reduction of N%”. And nothing actually came out of it. Everyone does, we have to buy it, shit stays the same.
You don’t have to buy it though! None of the packaged products in a grocery store are necessities. You could live a very healthy lifestyle eating only the fresh stuff from the store!
it is my contention that you could eat any random items form the perimeter of the store and be healthier than anyone that buys items from the health food aisle.
Food is an ingredient, it shouldn't have ingredients
Is a plate of spaghetti and meatballs not food?
did it come out of a box pre-made?
Being mega pedantic, pasta has ingredients.
But I understand your general point, you should be able to read the list of ingredients and understand what they all are right? Pasta being, flour, eggs, olive oil and salt is a much shorter list than whatever is in a microwave meal
Once you start googling some ingredients it is very easy to see what things are for. People are surprised when you tell them chicken flavour is vegan. I still don't think that is a bad thing.
Just cramming in 5 types of sugar and the daily recommended dosis of salt. That is what frustrates me. Maybe a list of purposes would help.
pretty much.
it's an oversimplification that works well enough. don't get me started on flour though ...
(I'm of the opinion that if it didn't have parents it isn't food either but that doesn't need to be a conversation)
load more comments
(4 replies)
The US needs nationally mandated unit price labeling. We’ve had it in NY for as long as I can remember.
You’d be shocked at how often the middle size is the best deal. It’s almost always the case with cereal. The large box ends up more expensive than the medium per ounce, but people assume it’s the better deal because it’s a bigger package.
Unit price labeling is mandatory in France too. This is the only price I'm looking at when shopping.
load more comments
(2 replies)
They’re still jerks about it in stores. To keep you from easily comparing products they’ll offer the unit price per oz for one box, then give you the unit price per lb for the other. So they make you do the math, and I’m sure plenty of people just skip that and buy the larger size.
That’s against regulations if you live in a unit price mandated state. You can report misuse of unit price labeling to your State Director.
According to NIST SP 1181, under Consistency of Units and Measure:
The declaration of the unit price of a particular category of product in all package sizes offered for sale in a retail establishment shall be uniformly and consistently expressed in the same unit of measure. The same unit of measure should be used whether a product category is sold in a fixed weight pre-pack, loose from bulk, or in a random weight pack.
Looks like I’ve got some reporting to do.
Costco do this too, at least in my area in California. They price some canned drinks per fluid ounce, and others per can. Really annoying.
I used to see Walmart do it too, but I think they've gotten better.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
While I think this is a step in the right direction, I don't think it's fair to put this on the grocers that didn't do anything wrong. This should be a labeling requirement for the manufacturer that's doing it. So instead of the one doing the harm having to take the brunt of the cost for doing it in the first place, instead the grocer has to take the time and money to do it and also keep up with any new changes. Again, step in the right direction. Never let perfect be the enemy of good.
I always look at the price/kg. Makes no difference what size the packaging is, that price will always tell which one is the cheapest.
You don't necessarily always check for something you're used to buying, so the shrinking may go unnoticed for a while.
Package price can still matter depending on how much you need of a product. Buying 10kg of rice when you need 500g is going to be more expensive than buying a smaller bag. Even if the price/kg is higher.
Me too, but there is one UK retailer (Co-operative) that makes it hard for you. They will have, say, a punnet of strawberries with 200g strawberries in it for £3.50 and another one with 300g for £4.50. The labels will say "unit price: £3.50/unit" or "£4.50/unit". (No, really?) So you have to do your own maths. Luckily other markets are sensible enough to actually provide price per weight. And in Tesco, when a given product is cheaper for clubcard holders, it will even give price per weight twice, for both normal price and clubcard price.
Btw. I don't work for Tesco. I just needed to vent about Co-op being dicks; Tesco just serves as a good counter example of how this should be done, in case any Co-op executive is reading this.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I've been thinking of a solution for this. What if products were required to be sold in standard increments. No 11.2 floz, either 6 floz or 12 floz. No 960 grams, only increments of 250 grams up to 1 kg, then increments of 1 kg. It would make product comparison much easier and make it obvious when shrinkflation is happening.
I wish you were the one writing the laws, this would be awesome.
It's mandatory to display the price per kg or L in France, which makes comparing the value much easier.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
"This product used to be bigger for the same price."
Dunce hat of the supermarket. Good.
We have unit price labeling here in Oregon, but they use different measurements for the same type of is products.
Great time to be label manufacturer
I wish we had consumer protection in the US, but that's unlikely to happen when corporations own most of our politicians.
I could see this happening in more progressive states like California, Oregon, or Washington state.
California already has a bunch of consumer protection laws:
- Store gift cards can never expire and must be redeemable for cash if they have a balance of less than $10.
- A warranty can't require you to register the product to be eligible for warranty coverage.
- The CCPA, which is like a mini version of the GDPR. Companies must provide all data they've collected about you upon request, must delete all the data upon request, and must let you opt out from them selling your data (they literally have to have a link labeled "do not sell my personal information" on their site)
- Anti price gouging laws.
- As of July 1, drip pricing (hidden fees on top of advertised prices, such as service charges) will be illegal.
And probably a bunch of other ones I can't think of off the top of my head :)
load more comments
(1 replies)
So, does this apply to products that have already applied shrinkflation, or just those after July 1st?
Only after. You cannot ignore legal grandfathering or the world would turn upside down.
Don't think that would exactly apply, as this seems to be just a notice that the size has changed without the price changing. Not really turning the world upside down, more just showing which companies/products have been screwing you lately.
Shrinked. Shrank.Shrunk.
Honey I shrinked the kids
Ah yes, Mars and Twix & co. "It's for your health"
So once everyone has done it at least once and every item has a warning that the item changed in size without the price, what do we do?
load more comments
(3 replies)
Doesn’t Mexico also do this?
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
614 points (99.2% liked)
News
23305 readers
3618 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS