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Great idea but there’s a slippery slope problem. Report on shrinkflation packaging and companies will switch to other less transparent means (ie changing ingred

Great idea but there’s a slippery slope problem. Report on shrinkflation packaging and companies will switch to other less transparent means (ie changing ingredients) and so this adds a bit of perverse incentive. I suppose companies already do the cost cutting, adding filler, etc… I’m a fan of just mandating price per ounce labels on everything. Stores could show current price per ounce and last year’s, no calling out specific brands, just make that data available to consumers on each price tag.

kergonath 3y ago
> Great idea but there’s a slippery slope problem. Report on shrinkflation packaging and companies will switch to other less transparent means (ie changing ingredients) and so this adds a bit of perverse incentive. What makes you think that they are not changing ingredients as well, at the same time? It’s just another button they can tweak to increase margins. If we follow that kind of logic, then we never put in place any regulation because it would just push people towards worse behaviours. A bit like when people who don’t want taxes say that it would just lead to tax evasion. In reality, there is room for reasonable regulations. > I’m a fan of just mandating price per ounce labels on everything. There is already a law to that effect. > Stores could show current price per ounce and last year’s, no calling out specific brands, just make that data available to consumers on each price tag. That would be definitely interesting. At the moment they just have to put the old price during sales.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  Yeah and it’s still not very useful for certain things. Like I was shopping for toilet paper the other day. The prices seemed outrageous but trying to compare price per square foot is meaningless when some paper is thick, some extra soft, some 1ply, etc. I like the price per weight unit, without packaging to compare not across products, but for the same product over time.
IngvarLynn 3y ago
In my experience shrinkflated products already use inferior ingredients, so it's a very useful signal that should be boosted, not eliminated. So putting a warning is a good thing, but shaming is not. To develop the idea further, most grocery shopping should move online, so I could trivially filter out products with shrinkflated packaging, containing palm oil, nestle brands, etc.

kergonath 3y ago

> Great idea but there’s a slippery slope problem. Report on shrinkflation packaging and companies will switch to other less transparent means (ie changing ingredients) and so this adds a bit of perverse incentive. What makes you think that they are not changing ingredients as well, at the same time? It’s just another button they can tweak to increase margins. If we follow that kind of logic, then we never put in place any regulation because it would just push people towards worse behaviours. A bit like when people who don’t want taxes say that it would just lead to tax evasion. In reality, there is room for reasonable regulations. > I’m a fan of just mandating price per ounce labels on everything. There is already a law to that effect. > Stores could show current price per ounce and last year’s, no calling out specific brands, just make that data available to consumers on each price tag. That would be definitely interesting. At the moment they just have to put the old price during sales.

2devnull 3y ago
Yeah and it’s still not very useful for certain things. Like I was shopping for toilet paper the other day. The prices seemed outrageous but trying to compare price per square foot is meaningless when some paper is thick, some extra soft, some 1ply, etc. I like the price per weight unit, without packaging to compare not across products, but for the same product over time.

IngvarLynn 3y ago

In my experience shrinkflated products already use inferior ingredients, so it's a very useful signal that should be boosted, not eliminated. So putting a warning is a good thing, but shaming is not. To develop the idea further, most grocery shopping should move online, so I could trivially filter out products with shrinkflated packaging, containing palm oil, nestle brands, etc.