Food Theory: They're STEALING Your Food!

I work in different grocery stores all around the Triangle in NC and I'm seeing this a lot. Packaging is shrinking and the price is still raising on them at the same time. Check out Breton Crackers as one example, they shrunk 20% and raised by 1$. They hide the price raise by putting them on sale right after, then after the sale you are left with the higher price and smaller packaging.

Food products aren't only getting smaller, they're also getting less nutritious and less healthy due to using lower-quality ingredients to save production costs

Seeing the words “Share Size” also makes me laugh. Every instance of shrinkflation gives me another reason to completely abandon a product I shouldn’t be eating anyway.

The issue isn't that they're trying to make up costs. These companies are shrinking products, increasing cost and cheaping out on ingredients all despite posting record profits.

In Germany, the consumer protection agency gives out a yearly award for the "Mogelpackung", which is a figurative word for a sham, but literally translates as deceptive packaging. Here, the worst offenders of shrinking packages and most air in packages are publically shamed.

"Sizes never really go back up." Actually, they do go back up. When they say, "Now 20% more!" on the packaging, they mean both the amount of food AND the price. So they shrink, shrink, shrink until enough people complain and then they increase both the size and the price at the same time and simultaneously spin in it in a way that most people won't notice.

I can almost forgive the shrinking sizes and increasing prices but I won’t forgive the change in quality. Most foods don’t taste good anymore. My goodness Totinos Pizzas are disgusting now😢

What annoys me is when the chocolate bars get smaller and they say it's because it's better for you or only so many calories per bar. It's got nothing to do with less calories but they try to make us think that. They still made Toblerone smaller. It use to be 400g now it's less.

In Brazil there's a law that makes it mandatory for the companies to clearly state in the package that the product is smaller/lighter when they do it.

Literally yesterday I was thinking, hey this Big Mac looks way smaller. I don't go to Macdonalds often so if they did change it gradually I feel like I'd notice.

Cereal is one of the most noticeable of this. I've worked in 4 grocery stores in the last 10 years, and when you work around it you notice it all the time.

Was so happy you started with calling it stealing. These vendors are making enemies out of the general public. It should be easy enough to figure out who they are and make them pay.

"Someone is stealing from you" Me, looking at the several other Food Theory episodes that have taught me as much - "I'm aware. But I'll happily listen to you explain again."

Finally we're tackling the topic of SHRINKFLATION! An especially bad problem in the wake of Covid. Thanks for covering this, Theory crew!

Doritos has been playing this game before I started eating them as a teenager back in the 1980's. Not only do they shrink the sizes, they get customers used to it, and then they introduce larger grab bags at a higher price, and then slowly reduce the size over time. There are other strategies like reducing the seasoning on each chip. Notice new flavors are bursting with flavor but over time slowly become more tame in flavor, and that is because they reduce the seasoning. Also, they will change the packaging sizes, introducing more air in the larger bag, but package the same amount of chips, or slightly more chips, but at a price increase. There are other strategies, but those are the few I can think of off the top of my head.

Sizes are going down but prices are not staying the same. Pasta in SW Ontario, Canada last year was 900g for $1.75 and now it's 750g for $2.25. The same goes with Doritos the weight has stayed the same but the price is up nearly $1.25 per big bag and when they go on sale they're usually around $3.25 where they used to go on sale for $2 last year for the bigger bag.

Just like your theory on why company logos are getting more and more simplified and worse, looks like their products are doing so as well.

As a child of the 70's (Yes I'm Old AF), I started to notice "Shrinkflation" in the 90's. Some people even tried telling me "You just got bigger" So thanks Mat Pat, this topic needs more exposure.

I'm going to start calling out all of these companies. I'm sick of it.

I work in a grocery store getting peoples groceries when they do curbside pickup, and this becomes super obvious when you do that. Sometimes I will have what is supposedly the item the customer wants right in front of me, but it won’t scan into our system, so I have to put it as a substitution, and what shows is two items with the exact same name but one has a smaller weight/volume. The one thing I will say is don’t get mad at grocery store employees for this, we have literally no control over that and if we shop at our own store it affects us too.