In addition to hiking prices and shrinking product sizes, some food companies have also been quietly downgrading ingredients to reduce manufacturing costs in a process known as 'skimpflation.'

In addition to hiking prices and shrinking product sizes, some food companies have also been quietly downgrading ingredients to reduce manufacturing costs in a process known as ‘skimpflation.’

  • Em Adespoton
    31·
    11 months ago

    This is also why we’re seeing a flurry of slightly different product names showing up on the market; for manufactured goods, to avoid accusations of bait and switch, companies are replacing “widget” with “widget ultra” which is really skimpified widget. Some are just doing “New formula!” and the original name instead.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      5·
      11 months ago

      I’ve been watching potato chip sizes consistently decline and prices go up or remain the same.

      I was appalled when I first saw regular bags become 200g. I think it was Ms Vickies that did it first, and others slowly followed.

      Costco chips remained pretty well priced during that transition, but now their prices are going up too. I should check their sizes as well, they used be around 650g if I recall correctly.

      Just this past month, I now saw a familiar name brand (can’t remember which it was) selling FAMILY SIZE bags that were a whole 220g.

      It’s insane.

      • Numpty
        2·
        11 months ago

        It’s showing up in all the things… the chicken breast packages used to be 1kg for $9, and in the short term they’ve increased to $15 or so for 650g. The prepared chopped salad (you can argue it’s not a smart buy, bu it illustrates the differences) used to be 450g to 500g and you’d pay $4, now it’s $6 and you get 365g.

        Consistently across the whole shopping list I’m seeing smaller packages for significantly more money.

      • DerisionConsultingEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        Some of it is because of Nutritional Information panels, but I agree that most of it is just greed.

        I saw a box of candies that was under 100g that as I child I would traditionally have eaten as a snack. The “suggested serving” size was significantly smaller than the box size in order to keep the “calories per serving” low. In order to keep us the ruse, the box is now called “a sharing box” and it said something like “Share with 6 friends!”.

        So, most of this is to be greedy, but some of it is to be deceitful.