Grocery Shrink Ray

I never heard the term before I started to research the hidden cost of food inflation. Companies have tried to camouflage price increases by selling smaller and smaller packages of their product. This is a world wide phenomenon, and consumers are complaining not only about the high cost of groceries, but about the intentional deception of the manufacturers.

Raw materials are increasing every time we turn around. Wheat, sugar, cotton, cheese, milk, corn are all higher than they were last year, and are the main ingredient in so many products. To compensate for a product costing more to produce, the manufacturer is changing the packaging, that is reducing the size of the packaging.

Take canned vegetables for example. Several years ago a can of corn was 16 ounces. Then it became 15.5 ounces, then 14.5 ounces, and recently canned corn was in 13 ounce container. Has the price changed? No.

Chicken of the Sea tuna used to be packaged in a 6 ounce can. That is now a 5 ounce can, for the same price. So they have effectively raised the price of the tuna about 20%.

On a UK website I was reading about candy bars, and how Mars, Snickers, and Toblerone have all shrunk. All three of these candy bars have shrunk by over 7%, yet the cost has remained the same or gone up.

Other products I have noticed where packaging has shrunk include boxed cereal, dry pasta, yogurt, ice cream, ice cream bars, crackers, soups, frozen vegetables.

Often the manufacturer will try to trick you into believing that the packaging has changed to be "greener", or to ensure greater freshness, when in fact what they've done is shrunk the size of the package and hoped you wouldn't notice. Label readers like me cannot be fooled. Many consumers just grab boxes from the shelf without checking the size. It's not until they come home and find out that the box of cookies has several less cookies than it used to that they realize they've been tricked.

If you asked the manufacturer they would not say that they are trying to decieve the public, but we all know they are not changing the packing just to be greener. We weren't born yesterday. We know what's going on, and unfortunately there's not too much we can do about it. I would just appreciate a little more honesty, a little more transparency. I guess that's not going to happen. As long as a quart of milk is still a quart, it's easy to guage how prices are rising. Knudsen fat free milk is now $1.69 a quart at Ralph's. Not too long ago it was $1.29. That's quite an increase. So now I buy my milk at the 99cent store.

The bottom line is, pay attention (unless price doesn't matter to you). We've got to be smart shoppers today to stay even. It's hard, but by reading labels and shopping for specials, it's still possible to keep your food costs under control.