I did my weekly grocery shopping some weeks ago and experienced a shrinkflation shock I wasn’t ready for. Okay I’m now more sensitive to grocery pricing and easily notice when something is off particularly on a frequently used item. I switched to shopping at Lidl some months ago and I have to say it has delivered huge savings on my grocery spend but I wasn’t prepared for the shrinkflation shock.
I usually buy the 1.1kg greek yoghurt every week as I use it for my breakfast and for salad dressing which makes it a double use great buy. I saunter to the yoghurt section yesterday and had to triple blink after searching for the usual tub for a bit thinking they introduced a new size. But that was not the case, the 1.1kg was gone and is now replaced by the 1kg tub at the same price. This switch translates to a 10% price increase. Was I shocked? Very. Was I annoyed? Very much so as 100g of yoghurt gone is one less breakfast for me. And this scenario I experienced is how shrinkflation works with companies strategically reducing product sizing and maintaining the same pricing. The expectation is most customers will not notice and they can easily pass on a price increase. There will always be the small % of customers like me that notice and get mildly irritated. That said, the new price point is still way cheaper than alternative options so I’m going to suck it up and keep buying.
Thinking about it, my personal preference is a straight up price increase vs. a shrinkflation as I immediately know what is happening and not waste time trying to figure it out. I have not noticed shrinkflation on the other items I buy from the store but I find myself doing a double check on every item now because you never know.