Chocolate candy bars, yogurt boxes or ice cream boxes you eat are all getting smaller, the reason behind is full of surprises
In today’s inflationary era, many items increase in price is something everyone knows and understands. But few people notice that the products they buy have decreased in quantity or even in quality.
In fact, many current items from chocolate bars to cake packs, soup boxes, sausages or dishwashing liquid have been slightly changed in size, especially in the food segment.
For example, Cadbury Dairy Milk’s chocolate bar has been reduced from 200g to 180g, Muller’s Corner yogurt has been reduced from 130g to 124g, and Biscuit Company’s Maryland chocolate cake pack has been reduced from 230g to 200g.
The Tillamook ice cream box has reduced the volume from 56oz to 48oz, while Pepsi’s Doritos Bimbim pack has also reduced the quantity, and Domino’s Pizza has also reduced the number of chicken wings in the takeout menu combo.
This phenomenon of unit reductions in what economists call “Shrinkflation” occurs when items are shrinking in size or quantity, or even sometimes by changing the formula, decrease in quality while the price of the above item remains the same or increases.
The main reason is that firms are forced to reduce product units, sell less per finished product to keep prices, thereby avoiding loss of sales in times of inflation as well as maintaining brand image.
If many supermarket chains in the US such as Costco kept the price of roasted chicken at the same price for the past 10 years in exchange for increasing the prices of other items, many brands could not do the same.
Spread
The term “Shrinkflation” first appeared in 1969 when journalist Arthur Buchwald wrote satirical commentary on inflation. The word began to become widely recognized in the 1970s as a series of manufacturers wanted to protect their profit margins against rising costs and slowing growth, so they began to devise new tricks.
Today, the story of product reductions is nothing new, but due to the small degree of decline, they do not attract the attention of consumers. Bloomberg news agency said this situation is happening everywhere in the world, from Australia to India, from the UK to the US.
In the UK, the story “Shrinkfaltion” has appeared since the people of this country voted to leave the European Union (EU), also known as Brexit. Mondelez International reduced the weight of its Toblerone chocolate bar, but was forced to restore it back to normal after consumer protests.
According to Bloomberg, to make it difficult for consumers to recognize, manufacturers are very careful in reducing product units. They can keep the same size but only slightly reduce the weight, thereby making customers unaware that they are buying the same amount but less goods.
In the same opinion, online seller Britsuperstore uses the analysis of “Money Saving Expert” to say that Brits are complaining a lot about chocolate, followed by cheese and milk when the product size changes, which is incorrect. like before.
Hopeless
With the current inflation situation, consumers will not be able to do much if they still want to buy goods at the old price. They will be forced to accept that the product quality will not be the same, or have to pay more.
According to Bloomberg, this product unit reduction often happens with big brands to maintain prestige, so customers can try to find less famous brands. At the very least, the smaller brands will increase the price of their products rather than having to pay the extra cost of resizing the unit to keep the image.
On the company’s side, there are many explanations given for the above action. Some argue that customers are still willing to buy less if the price stays the same, while others argue that they are protecting consumers’ health with high-sugar products, or protecting the environment…
For Mondelex, this group said this is the first time in 10 years that it has had to reduce the size of its Dairy Milk chocolate bar in order to stay competitive and ensure sales with competitors when costs increase due to inflation.
Meanwhile, a survey by Shopmate found that 50% of UK retailers believe that brands are best at reducing the size rather than increasing the price of their products because customers are now very price sensitive and this. huge impact on sales.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: genk.vn – Read the original article here
