this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Mildly Infuriating

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Up untill a week ago Nofrills carried these "three packs" of salmon for $10. Now the same pack contains two for the same $10. I thought it felt light when I bought it yesterday.

This comes to about $0.02 increase per gram, and a $1.10 price increase overall. Or a 11% increase in price overall. Meanwhile inflation is at 6-7%?

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This sucks. One of my favorite places to eat has both inflation and shrinkflation. Higher price for smaller portions.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (19 children)

More than likely their suppliers are bleeding them, a lot of restaurants in my town are dealing with the same shit

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Yeah. One of my favourite restaurants closed a couple months ago because they just couldn't justify charging more for food, but their suppliers sure could.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The worst part of shrinkflation is that it ruins all the old mid-century recipes that were based on "convenience foods" and specified ingredients like "one can" of cream of mushroom soup or "one package" of jello. Nowadays you've got to use a can and a half, or whatever -- WTF am I supposed to do with half a can of leftover soup, assholes?!

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Americans in shambles as shrinkflation ruins their measurement system /s

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a recipe for queso I found that asked for 13oz of condensed milk.

The stores here only sell 12oz cans. So I had to buy a small 5oz one to go with it. It's so dumb.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

... Or, you know, just adapt the recipe. Not simping for shrinkflation here, but it's pretty dumb to buy more than you need just to exactly match a recipe for queso. Shit ain't analytical chemistry

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Food isn't as precise as people think. I used to stress over recipes and shit when I first started cooking regularly. Shit just kinda works if you stick roughly to most recipes.

Edit: this is just a general comment, I know some foods require an absolute fuck ton of skill and precision to get right

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Baking is where it turns into an exact science.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Some countries have outlawed this behavior. If the seller/producer wants to decrease the package contents and keep the package size and price the same, they can (of course), but they must write on the package that the contents have decreased in large bright characters that are hard to miss. Something like this:

~~255g~~ now 200g

I'm not sure where you are (assuming USA, based on the packaging), but it's not illegal in the USA, since consumer protection is near to nonexistent.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Pretty sure this is Canada, no frills is a franchise chain under Loblaws. Loblaws is the kind of company that increases a product price by 20% and then puts up a "same price everyday" sign to gaslight customers.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

In the US it's actually illegal for companies to do something that benefits the consumer

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

The thing that pisses me off the most is “””eco-friendly””” companies doing shrinkflation. My guy, you can tell me it’s recycled plastic or whatever, if the portions are smaller you’re still pumping out more plastic than before, asshole.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If it's not Shrinkflation, it's Diluteflation.

I occasionally see posts and news articles about how AriZona Tea Company has "held the line" and kept their giant cans of iced tea priced at 99 cents for so long.

Well, after drinking a few cans of the stuff recently, I'm almost certain they're watering down their product. The tea is nowhere near as concentrated as it was a few years ago. There's practically no flavor to it anymore.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I kinda doubt they would bother to water it down. Realistically the flavouring in it costs a fraction of a cent for them. If they changed it for any reason would probably just be to be healthier

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The old fish costs $3.92 per 100g, the new fish $5. That's a price increase of (255/200 - 1) = 27.5%. The difference per gram (which isn't of interest to anybody) is 5-3.92, i.e. ¢1.08. Which also equates to a (5/3.92 - 1) = 27.5% increase.

Not sure what you were calculating, but every result was wrong.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cost per gram is the only sensible measurement

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (6 children)

and yet every single online grocery shopping I've been on refuses to have a filter or sort by price per weight option. It's even more incredibly infuriating when you have to click into an item's description or calculate it yourself, extra bonus hell points to the sites that change the weight metric so it's an extra step to figure out what the actual comparison is (probably more a US problem with ounce/pound conversion).

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Interesting that while there is only 2 instead of 3 in a pack, the total weight has gone down only 22% (from 255g to 200g, instead of 170g if the weight dropped by a third/33%). So the actual salmon pieces may be bigger?

This is still shrinkflation but there has probably also been previous hidden shrinkflation in the individual salmon pieces too and that bit has been slightly undone.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm on disability. Watching the prices climb the past few years has been genuinely distressing. I could never afford a full month of groceries but now I can afford even less. Food doesn't go nearly as far as it should. I find myself having to stretch stuff over days or do what I'm currently doing and just not eat for the better part of a week to save the little I have left.

I am not doing well and this shit is making it worse... I'm honestly afraid.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Don't be to humble to go to a food pantry. It's food for people who need it. I've used them. I'm not ashamed.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The absurd thinness of the "family size" boxes of frosted mini wheats is another one.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

They won't be able to stand upright in the next round of shrinking.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I love them sockeye... Watching them fight to get to spawning ground is something special to watch. One year I watched a group splinter off the Hoh river in Washington and make their way up a feeder stream. Ever day after school I'd run out to see where they were. So many started and only a few made it.

They literally saved my life. I was looking for somewhere to end myself when I found them. Their presence intrigued me and I decided to see it out. The day the last one spawned and died broke something in me, that hate I had. It's hard to explain but I was so overwhelmed by the experience I decided that if they can do that journey, i can do mine.

Thinking about it again always makes me so emotional.

Anyways that salmon is cheap and it should be cherished for what it is.

Sockeye Salmon are the best flavor of salmon.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I have lots of stomach issues and can't eat a lot of foods, which means I mostly eat the same few things over and over. One of the few things I can have reading out is a particular local restaurant's chicken strips, and I'd get them for lunch a couple times a month. They've raised their prices twice in the last 6 months, and what used to be 6-8 strips for$6 is now 5 chicken strips - just the chicken, no fries or other sides - for $10. If I'm feeling masochistic, I'll get myself and my father each one of their chef salads. Two of those are now $27. They are a very, very popular place and usually crazy busy, but since that last hike I've noticed the parking lot at lunchtime is often half empty. This is not a wealthy area, people can't afford these prices. They are going to greed themselves right out of business.

They've also lost every single long-time employee they had. And when I say long, I mean 15, 20 years working there. I watched most of them grow up, get married and have families. Every. Single. One. is gone, and I've seen most of them at other restaurants now. Their staff is now different every time I go in there, and service sucks and orders are frequently wrong. My work stopped ordering food from there for meetings because of it. Greed, greed, greed, with a healthy dose of apparent staff mistreatment. Story of the world at large nowadays.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's a fresh Canadian fish market near my house. A huge piece of wild caught Atlantic salmon that can feed 3-4 of us is $28 or so after taxes. The salmon is fresh, delicious, and way more plump. Shrimp too, I buy a $20 pack of shrimp at food basics and it shrinks to nothing while cooking, and the $25 of fresh shrimp from the fish market stays huge and doesn't soggy my recipe

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like they might be pumping water into that shrimp. They do it for chicken breast and I think up to half the weight of the product can be water added or something ridiculous like that.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Arizona Ice Tea the fucking OG.

Still 99 cents for a huge ass can.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

You have to stop buying them now. That's the only way the prices will ever stabilize.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The ever reducing diameter of wraps is the thing that gets me the most. Do they think we won't notice?! It's maddening. I want a big wrap.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

It's like that episode of Next Generation "Remember Me" when the universe is shrinking and everyone's disappearing and the Enterprise computer keeps gaslighting Dr Crusher trying to convince her it's fine, everything's fine, this is totally normal. But it's not fine, it really isn't.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Everybody blaming shrinkflation and nobody mentioning how terribly low salmon stocks are right now.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm totally with you that shrinkflation is an issue.

But these nofrills packages are intentionally priced at an even value like $10. to the point that the price is written directly on the package not an in store label that they can update. I get things like chicken and sausage patties like this too. So instead of putting in 3 and updating the price to $15 or whatever they just take one out.

Additionally fish is not a staple good, generally fish is sold at "market price" because it's affected by populations and seasons and prices for fish vary significantly through the years because of this.

But again I agree and the best thing to do is pay attention and not buy things that you don't think are worth.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

They also print the weight and number of pieces on the package, which they had to update. Since the packaging is otherwise identical, shoppers will buy it without reading the weight of number of pieces because it looks exactly like the old package.

Obviously, No Frills wanted to keep the price at $10, so they reduced the amount of fish in the package. That's shrinkflation. If the goal were to keep customers informed of the change, they would have made more noticeable change to the package.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Will at least all our problems of overweight, diabetes and clogged arteries be solved in a few years? Or will most of us be dead by that time? I fear the latter...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately, buying ultraprocessed foods is cheaper than buying healthy food. So I'd say it will only make the problem worse.

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