You might remember our debate about smaller creme egg packs. Well, there’s more. Not only have we uncovered a host of other everyday shrinking products, the sun’s at it too…
You might have missed it due to cloudy weather (at least we did in London!), but this morning the sun’s rays shrank into a total solar eclipse. And it’s not the only thing that’s been shrinking.
We discovered 13 shrinking supermarket products in our latest investigation, using data from the independent shopping website mysupermarket. Some had shrunk by as much as 50g! For example, a pack of Birdseye vegetables was 8% smaller, but still cost £2. And a bottle of Cif was still £2 in Asda, even though it had had a 7% reduction.
You can check out the other shrinking products in our online gallery, or by turning to p20 of the April issue of Which? magazine.
You all seemed to notice
Our Facebook fans have also been spotting shrinking supermarket products. Wendy’s been on the case for a some time:
‘Nearly every product has shrunk in size – I noticed 12 months ago.’
Belinda has noticed shrinking too:
‘Chocolate has definitely shrunk, be it bars or packets of chocolate products. Packets of crisps seem to be a little on the meagre side too!’
Why are products shrinking?
When we contacted food manufacturers about their shrinking products, some said this was due to economic factors. Heather, who commented on our Facebook page, seems to agree with this explanation:
‘The cost of raw materials eg. sugar ,flour chocolate oil etc went up in recent years. So ask yourself this question: smaller but same price or same size higher price?’
However, we think shrinking products can be a sneaky way of putting up costs for customers. Though WImpsh on Twitter saw a silver lining:
@WhichUK it’s ok ill just do 7% less cleaning
— W impish (@Wimpishpompano) March 19, 2015
Why do you think products are shrinking? Would you prefer the same-sized product at a higher price?