“Herta France, the disc [de jambon] shrunk so much that I had trouble packing my endive. you have reduced the quantity but not the packaging and even less the price. » « I bought a pie shell to decorate my dish for a quiche and I don’t have enough to go up to make the edges. “Pizza for two – two children and more…− at Dr. Oetker with a lie about the weight: 383 grams vs. 415 grams. »…
On social networks, as inflation eats away at their spending power, consumers no longer hesitate to complain that they feel cheated by the brands they are used to buying regularly. Would the producers have reduced the quantity of their products to avoid sharply raising their prices to mitigate the increase in their production costs? Packets of biscuits with fewer biscuits, less filled boxes of chocolate, smaller portions of cheese… for the same price as before, or even more.
This phenomenon is not new. It even has a name: shrinkflation (from the English verb shrink, which means “to shrink”). Reducing the quantity of a product reference is not prohibited by law, but the action must be transparent to the consumer, who must be informed before purchase.
“Conditioning Problem”
Asked in September 2022 by the Foodwatch association, which pointed to six weight reductions that occurred about two years ago on the shelves (St Hubert Omega 3 margarine, the bottle of Salvetat water, the bottle of Teisseire grenadine syrup, the portion of Kiri cheese, St Louis sugar or Pyrenean chocolate, from Lindt), the government wanted to know if this was a generalized phenomenon.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) seized this case between 14 and 1 Septembereh November 2022, 31 checks on food packaging companies to verify that the specified quantities were respected when filling the packaging. And out of 5,700 different references, more than 300 food stores were visited to check the display of the product on the shelves.
According to the ministerial delegate responsible for small and medium-sized enterprises, trade, crafts and tourism, Olivia Grégoire, the conclusions show “the reality of this practice”. “However, this is not a generalized and massive practice aimed at deliberately misleading the consumer”she nuances. To be sure, there are manufacturers who cheat, but they would not be that many: a soy sauce that does not comply because 3.6 milliliters of the expected 250 milliliters were missing; -one “conditioning problem” in a dried meat factory where the weight was not indicated on the packaging; a weighing problem for prepackaged meat and fish in stores…
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