[HN Gopher] Shrinkflation Tracker
___________________________________________________________________
Shrinkflation Tracker
Author : samlader
Score : 251 points
Date : 2023-09-15 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.shrinkflation.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.shrinkflation.io)
| lwansbrough wrote:
| I would like to be able to sort by change delta. Cool site!
| nowooski wrote:
| I ticker arrows could use explanation. I assume green is good and
| red is bad, but it's not immediately clear what the units are
| ect.
| karim79 wrote:
| I would love to see something like this for tracking the sizes of
| the content catalogs of streaming services like Netflix, D+, and
| the other streaming services which go out of their way to create
| the illusion of sitting on top of an infinite content library. To
| see how those values change over time, while subscription fees
| remain the same (at best) would be quite revealing.
| alex_young wrote:
| I don't really understand the recent focus on this. Shrinkflation
| has always been a thing, and it seems like it shouldn't be
| strongly correlated with actual inflation, since the critical
| equation is something like how much material should a given
| product contain to provide enough value to consumers, or in other
| words it's equally advantageous to optimize the value of your
| product in times of low or high inflation and thus optimize
| margins.
|
| Maybe we just care more about it when we see prices raising in
| general? IDK.
| prepend wrote:
| It's not a recent focus, it's a continual focus.
|
| Shrinkflation is important for understanding true price
| increase. It's not enough to say "toothpaste went up 20%" in
| price because you really want to know "toothpaste went up 35%
| based on weight."
|
| It's also frustrating because it's just another level of
| bullshit to sift through when shopping. It would be nice if
| manufacturers and retailers didn't do this.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| The worst part of shrinkflation is restaurants who have reduced
| the sizes of their meals, in my opinion. I've seen this quite a
| lot in everything from fast casual places like Cava to locally
| owned establishments.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That may not be a bad thing per se. In plenty of restaurants
| the amount of food in a serving is way too large for me and the
| alternative probably was to raise prices. In restaurants food
| isn't usually the high margin product, that's alcohol.
| kernx16 wrote:
| itd be interesting if tracking price is also included, although I
| can imagine that would be insanely difficult to keep track of for
| many reasons. I love this idea and hope it continues to grow.
| syassami wrote:
| @samlader - now overlay the graphs with EPS growth * -1 to see
| correlation
| hhthrowaway1230 wrote:
| Would be nice to have the actual owning organisations in there. i
| bet these are largely subsidiaries of the same mother company.
| karim79 wrote:
| I remember using this app[0] on my phone years ago, I just
| checked and they have an API. I'm not sure, but if I recall
| correctly this allowed you to scan barcodes of things and warn
| you if they are sub-brand or subsidiary of [evil company you
| wish to avoid].
|
| [0] https://www.buycott.com/api
| doubled112 wrote:
| Was it just based on that chart about the illusion of choice?
| corinroyal wrote:
| This was my reaction too. I'd like to see which conglomerates
| and their divisions are the worst offenders. To break it down
| by brands alone makes it hard to identify who to name and
| shame.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Nice project, very clean etc.
|
| Now about that shrinkflation thing... There isn't a single
| product in that list that is actually healthy. Highly processed
| food is horrible for us and our environment, and the gigantic
| conglomerates making and selling them are a plague to our
| economies.
|
| Veggies at my local farmers' market didn't shrink in size, prices
| went up slightly for some and it's very visible from the tag.
| Same goes for the bread I buy at the bakery, and the pasta I get
| in bulk in a small store nearby. If you have no choice but to
| rely on these products bought in a supermarket, you've been
| conned way before shrinkflation hit.
| prepend wrote:
| I don't rely on candy. I enjoy it a few times per year.
|
| It sucks that Cadbury eggs get smaller and smaller. Not because
| I need their nutrients to survive.
| camhart wrote:
| Did they get smaller or just fewer in the pack?
| [deleted]
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Bread wouldn't be bread if it wasn't processed. We would be
| eating the wheat kernels.
| lq9AJ8yrfs wrote:
| Not all bread has
|
| * added sugar
|
| * preservatives
|
| * texturizers
|
| Cut these out and you're on the right side concerning
| processed foods.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| All bread cuts out most of the fiber of the wheat kernel.
| That's more of a net gain than removing the items you
| listed.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I wrote _highly_ processed, not processed
| throwanem wrote:
| Toothpaste and soap aren't healthy?
| bumby wrote:
| Some toothpaste can be a net-negative, like those with
| abrasives. It's actually the mechanical aspect of brushing
| that does most of the hygiene. Frothing and minty taste of
| toothpaste are mostly marketing. Maybe there's a case for
| fluoride, but there are other sources like tap water (and
| that's a whole digression of it's own).
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Some toothpaste can be a net-negative, like those with
| abrasives
|
| Yup. Those toothpastes with extra whitening are wreaking
| havoc. It's effectively liquid sandpaper.
|
| > Frothing and minty taste of toothpaste are mostly
| marketing
|
| The frothing, sure. The mint? I mean, I like _some_ kind of
| flavoring. Mint is nice.
|
| > Maybe there's a case for fluoride, but there are other
| sources like tap water (and that's a whole digression of
| it's own).
|
| There's _definitely_ a case for the fluoride. Your tap
| water isn 't enough.
| bumby wrote:
| > _The mint? I mean, I like some kind of flavoring. Mint
| is nice._
|
| I'm saying it's a subjective nice, it's not adding to the
| hygienic effect of toothpaste. Its was added to _feel_
| clean, not because it actually does any cleaning.
|
| Fluoride works, but the concentration in toothpaste is
| usually too low to be effective.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Those of us on well water don't get fluoride in our
| drinking water.
| bumby wrote:
| Hopefully you get it from a dentist visit because unless
| you use a prescription toothpaste, it probably doesn't
| have much effect.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Mostly marketing or people actually enjoy these things and
| they encourage good oral hygiene?
| bumby wrote:
| I guess, yes, from a behavioral change standpoint they're
| effective, even if they don't objectively contribute to
| hygiene themselves.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Fair enough, but let's not pretend this is what shrinkflation
| is all about...
| switch007 wrote:
| Warning: rant about brands
|
| The sadistic think about brands is that people are paying for
| marketing team to continue to lie to them and brainwash them, to
| convince them to continue buying their products!
|
| Media is full of brands - gosh I wonder how they have all that
| budget for expensive marketing campaigns !
|
| It's so incredibly hard to wean someone off brands. I've been
| campaigning my family for years, but they still seem allergic to
| Aldi/Lidl etc.
|
| Take cereal (eww):
|
| Aldi Corn Flakes (500g) - PS0.75 ($0.93)
|
| Kellogs Cornflakes (500g) - PS2.25 ($2.79)
|
| 3x more expensive! THREE. (some people might be thinking that
| $2.79 is _nothing_ but just think in relative terms)
|
| Yes Kellogs Cornflakes taste a bit nicer but that's not the
| comparison to make: a small serving of oats with some fruit is a
| MUCH better breakfast meal. Oats are roughly same amount of
| calories per gram but much more filling and less sugar, salt, fat
| etc and double the protein. But we're all addicted to cereal
| because the adverts brainwashed our parents in to thinking it's a
| healthy meal to have in the morning.
|
| (EDIT: oops guess I'm a hypocrite) And has anyone tasted a
| McVities Digestive biscuit recently? (similar to a graham
| cracker, a distant relative of the shortbread - very very popular
| in the UK)? Absolutely vile. If you're still buying them you're
| literally an idiot and COVID must have destroyed your taste buds.
| Aldi own brand digestives taste like the old recipe of McVities
| Digestives at 1/3 of the price!
| ravenstine wrote:
| But sugary cereal is heart-healthy!
|
| Oh wait, that's horseshit that even Kellogg can't get away with
| anymore.
|
| https://thecounter.org/kellogg-sugary-cereal-healthy-label/
|
| Breakfast cereal, namely corn flakes, is a mass psychosis. Have
| them sometimes if you like as a treat, but even then you might
| as well eat a bowl of ice cream. The idea of eating cornflakes
| was invented by a guy who gave his "patients" yogurt enemas.
| Why in 2023 are we still taking his advice?
| hankchinaski wrote:
| the choice as you say it's not between kellogs vs aldi cereals.
| But between highly processed and industrially produced crap and
| organic high quality raw foods. I personally don't buy any of
| the products on this list. But for a lot of people, there isn't
| a lot of choice but to go to a discount because that's
| literally only thing they can afford unfortunately.
| KomoD wrote:
| > but that's not the comparison to make
|
| It is one a lot of people make, also... you make that
| comparison literally one line down.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jstanley wrote:
| I also find the Lidl Ginger Nut biscuits are vastly superior to
| the McVities ones, which taste burnt. I don't understand why
| McVities aren't better.
| switch007 wrote:
| > I don't understand why McVities aren't better.
|
| People pay McVities to brainwash them in to thinking they're
| better, so they don't need to be better LOL
| xwdv wrote:
| I don't get it, would people rather pay higher prices up front?
|
| A lot of times people don't even use the entirety of a product
| they pay for. Shrinkflation can essentially just cut that part
| out. Even if you eat 100% of something, your brain was probably
| satiated after eating 80%, the rest is excess.
|
| For stuff like candy you won't notice a missing gummy bear or
| two. You'll get the same satisfaction.
| waffleiron wrote:
| If it's two gummy bears a year, a decade later it's an empty
| bag.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| A lot of people resent how sneaky shrinkflation feels.
|
| Manufacturers would gladly boast about increasing the size of
| their product if they did so, but do everything they can to
| hide when they've shrunk it.
|
| Manipulative tricks like oddly shaped packaging or plastic
| fillers to take up the space that was previously product are
| examples of why people hate shrinkflation.
|
| If something goes up in price but the quantity and quality
| stayed the same, people wouldn't feel like they're being
| tricked.
| xwdv wrote:
| They wouldn't feel tricked, but then they'd be pissed off at
| the rising prices, which affects their ability to enjoy the
| product.
|
| If someone sells you a bag of chips but they've already eaten
| two of the chips, your enjoyment of the bag will still be the
| same as if you had the whole bag. If they reveal that fact to
| you though, then your experience will be soured.
|
| This is for the consumer's own benefit.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| People just like to feel outraged, apparently.
| spandextwins wrote:
| Ronald Reagan used to have the misery index
| DanHulton wrote:
| I feel like Reagan used to _cause_ the misery index.
| spandextwins wrote:
| They all do
| eppsilon wrote:
| http://www.miseryindex.us/indexbymonth.aspx
| not_the_fda wrote:
| The idea is nice, but it seems to be tracking junk food, which
| you probably shouldn't eat and can easily avoid.
|
| I'd be more interested in home goods such as soap, detergent; and
| food staples.
| [deleted]
| Koeniggimeno wrote:
| There's a listing for soap on the front page, I don't think
| it's confined to just junk food
| KomoD wrote:
| I searched soap and got no result
| dfgasdgsd wrote:
| I don't think the search works, but it's here:
| https://www.shrinkflation.io/products/535
| [deleted]
| patrickwalton wrote:
| We saw shrinkflation with our apartments when they went from a
| central dumpster to expecting everyone in an 8-unit complex to
| line up cans on the road
| willio58 wrote:
| I've definitely experienced this with colgate toothpaste and sure
| enough it's on this list!
| m3kw9 wrote:
| For junk food which is what this mostly tracks, shrinkflation is
| good for people's healths.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| >inflation is a good thing and here's why
| corinroyal wrote:
| Inflation Could Save Your Life! The reasons why may shock
| you.
| shmatt wrote:
| Lipids HATE this one trick
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| clickbait is not what i meant, why are we having a
| reddit-tier comment chain?
| rexpop wrote:
| It's not lipids you should be worried about, it's
| emulsifiers:
|
| > celluloses, mono and diglycerides of fatty acids,
| modified starches, lecithins, carrageenans, phosphates,
| gums, and pectins. Some recent studies have indicated
| that emulsifiers can disturb gut bacteria and promote
| inflammation, potentially increasing susceptibility to
| cardiovascular issues.[0]
|
| 0. https://studyfinds.org/food-e-numbers-heart-disease/
| drivers99 wrote:
| To OP's point, would be interesting to have an option to filter
| out junk food.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Good news everyone! You can't afford snacks anymore.
| ilyt wrote:
| Well, till you need to get 2 burgers instead of one to feel
| full...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is the point, people eat fewer burgers because they
| cannot afford more.
| chongli wrote:
| This has not worked out so well for other products. I live
| in Canada where cigarettes are enormously expensive due to
| taxes. Yet I know people who continue to smoke.
|
| They're a lot poorer now, and so they have less money to
| spend on healthy food. So not only are they destroying
| their health by smoking, they're stuck eating crappy food
| as well.
| tristor wrote:
| Yes, GP is absolutely correct, all the people in the
| developing world who can't afford food are much healthier
| than those of us in the West, that live long enough and eat
| enough to deal with diseases of obesity that primarily
| affect one after 60 years of age. /s
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| You put /s, but that to an extent is sort of true.
| Diseases can't be cured as effectively where remedies or
| mitigations are too expensive, but the same first world
| locations where medicine and care is most available also
| have a litany of factors working against health.
|
| I don't believe though that this is inevitable, and I
| hope that the first world will continue to improve its
| situation, and that less well-equipped areas will somehow
| avoid making the mistakes and leapfrog these
| uncomfortable middle periods. We see this for instance
| with the Industrial Revolution, where those that can be
| credited with facilitating it generally did pretty poorly
| for themselves, but those who industrialised later were
| substantially better off.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The context is not affording junk food, not not affording
| food. Most burgers qualify as junk food.
| tristor wrote:
| Sure. Starvation is more deadly than obesity however, and
| globally more prevalent.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-
| and...
|
| >In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and
| older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were
| obese.
|
| >39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in
| 2016, and 13% were obese.
|
| https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--
| global-h...
|
| >The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to
| as many as 828 million in 2021
|
| I would bet the obesity numbers have greatly increased
| since 2016.
| waffleiron wrote:
| Another statistic from your source
|
| > Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3%) were
| moderately or severely food insecure in 2021
|
| It's easy to talk on a forum like this, where the median
| salary is massive compared to global/country median, that
| poor people shouldn't be able to afford as much bad food.
| I think when you do so you've lost touch with the average
| person who is affected by things like shrinkflation.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I never meant to imply poor people, as in starvation
| poor, should not be able to afford as much bad food.
|
| But generally, the people eating burgers in developed
| countries have a choice of eating healthier foods, and
| choose to eat burgers instead.
| tristor wrote:
| What wonder, we've nearly conquered hunger if obesity has
| finally become more prevalent than starvation. I stand
| corrected. Nonetheless, starvation is more directly
| harmful/deadly. Obesity may kill you eventually,
| starvation will kill you in relatively short order.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sure, but this thread is about the price of processed
| junk foods going up, including burgers, the sat fat laden
| mayo, and the bread enveloping it.
|
| Price increases in healthy lentils, grains, nuts, fruits,
| vegetables, dairy, and healthier meats/poultry/fish is a
| concern for the global poor, but that is not what is
| talked about here.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I don't particularly care about shrinkflation. It gets calculated
| in the CPI (obviously) and most of the time it's goods that are
| unhealthy and overpriced to begin with.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| But a lot of us enjoy eating unhealthy foods. And as long as we
| don't have diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc
| then it's not a problem.
| switch007 wrote:
| I think it's just a wild theory at this stage, but some
| doctors are saying that eating unhealthy food leads to
| diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| If one is sedentary and obese, yes.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Sure, most of these items also cost next to nothing to make too
| and costs to actually make have barely risen (as a percentage
| of the item cost). So mostly it's companies using inflation to
| squeeze more money out of people.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I agree that material cost is not a major component of the
| cost in a lot of these products.
|
| It's marketing, distribution, etc. I don't think inflation is
| their excuse to squeeze more money out of you as it is to
| spend more in other areas of the business, as they should.
| phreeza wrote:
| It's basically a dark pattern. Not illegal or anything, but
| designed to mask relevant information from the consumer.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > most of the time it's goods that are unhealthy and overpriced
| to begin with
|
| Like British housing, horribly overpriced and half of it has
| mould.
| zamadatix wrote:
| For some reason the same product often shows up multiple times in
| the list. And I don't mean "the product looks the same" I mean
| "the URL it links is even the exact same" .
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| On mobile some of the prices show up as 8E210, which is a
| hilarious bug
| kardos wrote:
| Or someone added a bogus 'observation'
| jacquesm wrote:
| Same on FF.
| jqjqjqjq wrote:
| Should be able to sort by highest to lowest. Name and shame'em!
| furyofantares wrote:
| I don't like that it's sneaky, but I would rather candy servings
| get smaller rather than prices get higher, if those are the
| options.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Love the idea, but how far back do the data go?
|
| And someone pointed out the preponderance of junk food; I want to
| see core items that are often used in recipes. To me this is the
| most offensive aspect of these scams: You know your favorite
| recipe takes four cans of tomatoes, cans that have been the same
| size for decades. Now... WHOOPS, your meal is messed up because
| the manufacturer is too gutless to simply raise the price.
|
| The one example I see on the site is butter:
| https://www.shrinkflation.io/search?query=butter
|
| These jagoffs reduced the quantity by 20%, which is definitely
| enough to mess up recipes.
| KomoD wrote:
| > but how far back do the data go?
|
| Anywhere from 1297 to 9248 apparently, I guess he must have
| some kind of time traveler
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Recently I noticed that the baguettes at Whole Foods (in St.
| Louis) are about 2 inches shorter than before. They are the same
| price.
| Hard_Space wrote:
| I have thought about developing this site for the last 3-4 years!
| This is exactly what it would have looked like. Thanks for saving
| me the trouble (if I ever had got round to it).
| kepano wrote:
| In a high-inflation environment your profits are constantly
| shrinking. The problem also affects small and independent makers
| of all kinds.
|
| If you are an indie maker and priced your product at $10 in 2020,
| you're now effectively making $8.38 USD[1]. Assuming inflation
| will remain elevated and you want to maintain the same margins,
| you need to either:
|
| 1. increase prices
|
| 2. reduce quality/quantity/features
|
| 3. reduce supplier costs
|
| 4. reduce service costs
|
| Customers are very sensitive to increases in prices. This is a
| case where none of the options are great.
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1702401372661096477
| imglorp wrote:
| There's more malfeasance here.
|
| 5. They expansively tier their product line with minor
| variation to remove the idea of a standard offering. Eg there
| are some 33 sizes of M&Ms so nobody could say "get me a bag of
| M&Ms" any more. Forget comparing cell service plans.
| * https://www.measuringhow.com/m-and-m-bag-sizes-guide/
|
| 6. They generate different model names for sale at different
| retailers to obstruct comparison shopping. The TV, appliance,
| and mattress industries are dirty here. *
| https://www.quora.com/Why-are-model-numbers-for-the-same-
| appliance-all-different-in-each-store-you-visit?share=1
|
| 7. They attempt to detect when comparison shopping is happening
| and intervene. * https://www.washingtonpost.c
| om/news/innovations/wp/2017/06/16/amazon-has-a-patent-to-keep-
| you-from-comparison-shopping-while-youre-in-its-stores/
| * https://www.patriotsoftware.com/blog/accounting/discouraging-
| price-shopping/
| masfuerte wrote:
| Shoe and boot manufacturers also do 6.
| consp wrote:
| And onther method is offering a new product in the same
| category with less content for a higher price, eventually
| switch over all products and level the price, now you have
| less at the same or higher prices for all products (looking
| at you teisseire as a latest example)
| dweinus wrote:
| That's a good explanation, but problems with silently reducing
| quantity are: - It attempts to trick the customer - As a
| customer, it makes it harder to depend on your product or buy
| predictably (a box of cereal used to last me through the week,
| now suddenly it doesn't) - It is now harder for me to
| comparison shop because I need to calculate cost per
| volume/weight - It is often done at a rate higher than
| inflation
|
| This site is great, people need more transparency and companies
| need to be called out
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Most of the products on the site appear to be candy/junk that
| shouldn't be consumed in large quantities anyway. There is
| probably substantial social good being done by making the
| default portions of pringles and chocolate smaller.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| this is an accurate description of shrinkflation, though not a
| good justification of it
|
| if companies were honest, they'd put _" 29% less, but the same
| price! Inflation, you know?"_, and more-informed consumers
| could make more-informed choices
|
| indeed, _" Customers are very sensitive to increases in
| prices"_ is a nicer way of saying "shrinkflation makes it
| easier to hide from consumers that they are receiving less
| value for their money"
|
| Thank you for this site, if the author is here, it's something
| I felt we needed to make markets more informed and more
| efficient. I'll be submitting content.
| kepano wrote:
| I'm not defending CPG companies. I'm pointing out that if
| you're an indie maker inflation is a problem you need to
| contend with in your own pricing. Once you start thinking
| about it from that perspective, you realize how difficult of
| a problem it is to solve in a way that feels fair to
| customers.
|
| In theory software is easier because you could more easily
| change your pricing every month. With CPG these products sit
| on store shelves and the manufacturers have less direct
| control over the pricing.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The issue most people have with shrinkflation isn't that
| the manufacturers made a tough call when all the options
| were tough, it's that manufacturers do so in a manner
| deliberately calculated to hide information from the
| consumer, and in some cases outright deceive them (if they
| didn't, this shrinkflation tracker wouldn't exist)
|
| To reiterate, a company honest with consumers would inform
| them they were getting less for the same price, and try to
| make the case you're making now: "hey, sorry about this,
| but times are tough, and we can't raise prices"
|
| Less scrupulous and deceptive companies don't
| kepano wrote:
| Not sure if this fits under shrinkflation, but the
| practice of substituting quality ingredients for cheaper
| ones is even worse IMO. When Nutella did it, it caused a
| huge kerfuffle, but it's virtually impossible for a
| consumer to track this across all the products they buy.
|
| An upstream problem is the money printing that causes
| some of these incentives in the first place.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > To reiterate, a company honest with consumers would
| inform them they were getting less for the same price,
| and try to make the case you're making now: "hey, sorry
| about this, but times are tough, and we can't raise
| prices"
|
| How do they do this? They make a chocolate bar that a
| shop buys and puts on a shelf.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| They have to alter the packaging to account for the
| changes. They can either do so in a way that makes
| apparent to the customers that they're receiving less
| value for their money, making sure they're aware of it,
| or they can do so in a way that attempts to deceive
| consumers and hide this information.
|
| An example of messaging for the former is described in
| the quote you quoted. Another would be to use different-
| looking packaging, to indicate that it is not what it was
| before. If a consumer will still buy the item when
| properly informed of the lower value, then this apparent
| labeling should not have any effect on sales. If it does,
| it means the information hiding was material, which makes
| it bad.
|
| tl;dr: companies hide this information because being
| deceptive increases sales, if it didn't, they wouldn't
| adamc wrote:
| Being honest doesn't pay as well. If it did, they would just
| raise the price.
|
| They are hoping you don't notice.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| In an ideal world, one UPC code would identify only one product
| with one set of ingredients and one weight. Want to make a "+20%
| free!" package? New UPC! Want to change the contents from 16%
| cacao to 14% cacao and some more sugar? Sure, new UPC.
|
| The manufacturers would have to publish the contents for each UPC
| in a machine readable format.
|
| Then the retailers would have to publish daily prices, again in a
| machine redable format.
|
| ...and the world would be a much nicer place for the consumer.
| Everyone could build apps on top of that, you could compare
| retailers, comparable items could be crowdsourced (eg, 1L of 3.5%
| fat milk and a list of all UPCs for that), shopping list apps
| could calculate the cheapest options to choose the cheapest
| store, or in cases with multiple stores in a cluster, tell you
| what to buy where, etc.
|
| And the best thing is, that nobody actually regulates any prices
| or item sizes, just the consumer gets more informed.
| Horffupolde wrote:
| You are free to do that. UPC is a private standard.
| imbusy111 wrote:
| A lot of it looks like candy, so it could be a good thing.
| maxbond wrote:
| Very cool! Where are you sourcing data from?
| phailhaus wrote:
| Super cool! Very clean, nice font. Some UX things I noticed:
|
| 1. In the scrolling feed on the homepage, a 0% change is shown as
| negative with a red down arrow
|
| 2. In the tracker page, 0% is grey (good!) but still with a down
| arrow, which isn't accurate
|
| 3. Might be a good idea to highlight egregious offenders over
| small decreases. Maybe bold the value if it's greater than
| 10-15%?
|
| 4. Would be cool to be able to sort to see the worst offenders!
| boxed wrote:
| I wonder why 0% items are shown on the big list at all. Like
| having a page of murderers with random innocent people with a
| text label under "not a murderer" :P
| herpderperator wrote:
| It could be greater than 0% but less than 0.5%, ending up
| rounded down when displayed. The value getting checked might
| be against the raw value rather than the rounded one. Which,
| of course, is a bug.
| [deleted]
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| That would actually be beneficial to the innocent people if
| it gave them indemnity to prosecution! It's better to be
| cleared of a suspected crime than never prosecuted, in my
| opinion*.
|
| * assuming the availability of _pro bono_ legal aid as part
| of social welfare, a key part of any judicial system.
| elurg wrote:
| Most of these products are extremely unhealthy so shrinking
| portions should be considered a public service.
| smath wrote:
| % change is over what time frame? YoY?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| So is shrinkflation actually included in official inflation
| numbers? If all bars of soap in the country become smaller by
| 10%, does 'official' inflation number go up? Are the folks
| tracking official inflation index equipped to measure all the
| various products per kilo, etc?
| vuln wrote:
| "Inflation? There's no inflation, we've created millions of
| jobs and pay has increased!" - Current Administration
| vuln wrote:
| The truth hurts more than the downvotes.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| in the uk we measure the price of a basket of goods, which
| includes quantity adjustment. So packaging size is irrelevant.
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/meth...
|
| >The simplest form of direct adjustment is quantity adjustment,
| which is used when there is a permanent size change in an item.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| What's the problem? You want to keep everything the same size and
| pay more? That's the other option. You know it works out to the
| same amount of stuff for the same amount of money, right?
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| Yes, because it's easier to notice and adjust your purchasing
| decisions accordingly.
|
| The point of shrinkflation is to obfuscate the price increase
| and hope that some consumers don't notice.
| akomtu wrote:
| Why does it track some irrelevant products? It should track
| things that matter: milk, bread, meat, fish, fruits and so on.
| Koeniggimeno wrote:
| Great Idea! Perfectly executed, great site to give some awareness
| to the average consumer.
| purplecats wrote:
| can you automate this with amazon parsing?
| MikusR wrote:
| In EU prices for food stuff have to also list price per KG.
| cj wrote:
| This is also common in the US.
|
| Example below. Top row is blurry but bottom row shows "per
| ounce" price on the bottom right. Tiny print and I imagine
| barely anyone actually shops that way.
|
| I'm guessing there must be some US requirement for this
| otherwise I'm not sure why it's commonplace.
|
| https://supersafeway.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Screen-S...
| ericpauley wrote:
| > I imagine barely anyone actually shops that way.
|
| This feels so foreign to me; I largely ignore the overall
| price and shop by unit prices within a reasonable size range.
| belval wrote:
| I think the commenter you are responding to does not have
| enough faith in humanity. Most people I know (anecdotal and
| biased sampling I know) do check that number when shopping,
| especially for interchangeable items that don't have a
| well-know brand such as flour or baking powder.
| gen3 wrote:
| Ancidotal, but myself and many of my friends shop this way.
| I've found that sometimes the larger bottle isn't cheaper per
| unit
| Crunchified wrote:
| Here in the US, while unit pricing is commonly displayed, I
| frequently find that a store will use a wide variety of units,
| thereby negating the ability to easily compare items in this
| way. For the same type of product I may see cost per ounce,
| cost per pound, cost per each, cost per dozen, etc. for various
| sizes and brands. It's maddening, insulting, and probably in
| most cases malicious.
| ftyers wrote:
| Yeah, this is insane e.g. I've seen cents/fl.oz,
| dollars/litre, cents/ml, dollars/unit. For the same product.
| And yes, totally malicious. Fresh Thyme does this. It's ugly.
| sebazzz wrote:
| Yes, but no history.
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| seeing "Do not know how to serialize a BigInt"
| abeppu wrote:
| Oddly, search only covers brand names?
|
| https://www.shrinkflation.io/search?query=soap <- zero results
| https://www.shrinkflation.io/search?query=dove <- result has
| 'soap' in name
| hinkley wrote:
| I was just talking today to someone about how they don't like
| food from a certain global coffee chain anymore because their
| food has gotten kinda crappy.
|
| Shrinkflation generally means same price for less product (grams,
| fluid ounces), but enshitification by slowly decreasing the
| quality of the ingredients is also a problem.
|
| Do we put that under the shrinkflation umbrella or track it as a
| separate problem? Since they are both unwanted solutions to the
| same problem, seems like they should be kept together (to avoid a
| Goodhart's Law fiasco)
|
| I recall eating an Oreo after fifteen years of not having one. At
| first I just thought I'd forgotten what they actually tasted
| like, but the more I thought about it, the more I could see a
| long chain of focus groups asking customers if cookie A and
| cookie B taste the same, if one tastes better, and slowly
| changing the formula to only alienate 0.2% of the customers each
| time until one day I wander up and find I'm part of the 10%
| they've cumulatively alienated.
|
| See also how only some of us can taste certain artificial
| sweeteners as sugary toxic waste instead of sugar (saccharin
| tastes to me like drinking soda after licking a 9 volt battery)
| aequitas wrote:
| > but enshitification by slowly decreasing the quality of the
| ingredients is also a problem.
|
| Every time you see a package with "new and improved recipe" you
| can bet it only improved their margins by using cheaper
| ingredients, not the actual taste.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Just one more factor to consider, some ingredients are no
| longer available.
|
| Trans fats are a good example of this. They used to be the
| prime replacement for saturated fats. Now, in the US, they are
| effectively banned.
|
| This hit oreos. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2006/01/02/manufacturers-
| tri...
| hinkley wrote:
| Fair point. Were oreos always palm oil or were they lard back
| in the day?
|
| The fracking industry has made guar gum too expensive to use
| as a food emulsifier. I know someone who reacts to xanthan
| gum (which has all but replaced guar) and she's not a happy
| camper, because it's in fucking everything.
| skyyler wrote:
| No, they were partially hydrogenated soybean oil back in
| the day.
|
| Palm oil is thick at room temp, like partially hydrogenated
| oils are.
| vmilner wrote:
| Sainsbury's don't like changing the weights encoded in their urls
| so although Cadburys 180g "Price locked" Fruit and Nut has been
| shrinkflated for over a year the link is still:
|
| https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/cadbury-dairy-mi...
|
| ...www.Sainsbury's.co.uk/gol-ui/product/cadbury-dairy-milk-fruit
| ---nut-200g
|
| My
| wppick wrote:
| Another source of shrinkflation is changing ingredients.
| Something that used to be 50% water is now 75% water as an
| example. Another is changing from olive oil to canola or palm or,
| and things like that.
| purplecats wrote:
| we need github tracking for the changes in metadata for
| products, like we do for legislation or the terms of use (like
| the one that unity deleted)
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I mind this much more than I mind shrinkflation
| yoyoyo1122 wrote:
| Yeah, people call it skimpflation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation#Skimpflation
| bjfish wrote:
| I think the toilet bowl cleaner used to be more viscous and
| last a long time.
| chongli wrote:
| One of the worst offenders in this regard is packages of frozen
| meat products such as chicken wings, chicken fingers, nuggets,
| etc. They used to just contain the breaded meat with the net
| weight printed on the box (usually 2 lb).
|
| Now they've started including frozen sauce packets as well.
| I've weighed some of these and found, for example, a 2 lb box
| of chicken wings that comes with more than half a pound of
| buffalo sauce. The net weight stays the same (2 lb) but if you
| weigh the chicken you're getting less than 1.5 lb of meat! The
| rest is all sauce!
| atmanactive wrote:
| Great idea! I'm afraid this would require at least a hundred
| employees to keep it current and useful, though. But, as a
| society, we definitely need this. Maybe if some government agency
| could back it up?
| sanitycheck wrote:
| A ton of automated scraping is what it needs. Just the main UK
| supermarket chains would do, as it seems rather British in the
| choice of products even though there's no pricing actually
| shown.
| lozenge wrote:
| The packages are changing so fast/often now that the shelf
| labels, online sizes and unit prices are often out of date.
| (Yes this is illegal, no nobody cares because it's PS0.05 per
| product and they aren't doing it on purpose, they just don't
| make it a priority to have correct data).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why would this benefit society? Price per unit is a trivial
| calculation, and most grocery stores already show it on the
| price tag.
|
| Change in price over time is irrelevant for making a decision
| on whether or not something is worth the utility to price ratio
| now. If you are trying to time the market on junk food, then it
| is best to simply avoid it.
|
| If, for some reason, you want to prevent Mondelez, or whichever
| other manufacturer, from earning more profit margin than it
| historically has, then you can look up their public financials
| most of the time:
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MDLZ/mondelez/prof...
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| i can't believe the sole use you could think of is timing the
| market on junk food
| [deleted]
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| >Why would this benefit society?
|
| To put factual and open information out there of how
| companies consistently just fuck with all of us and get away
| with every little thing they can because "profits!" and
| "their duty to investors!". e.g., the biggest lies our
| societies ever came up with
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is already open information that pretty much every
| seller of everything in the whole world tries to sell for
| as high of a price that they think can get.
|
| And that purchasing power of currencies will go down over
| time.
| andymal wrote:
| This is great! I wanted to add a product that I recently noticed
| was smaller, but I no longer use Google, so I'm unable to go
| through the submission process. Maybe if someone else sees this
| you can add Kingsford charcoal. 4-5 years ago bags came in a pack
| of 2x20 lb. Then 2022 they were 2x18lb. This year they are
| 2x16lb. Can't wait until we can just buy a 2 pack of briquettes.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Should probably complete the price point review prior to allowing
| the data points to be shown. This dove bar has a price point from
| the year 9999 and its messing with the whole graph:
| https://www.shrinkflation.io/products/535
| steine65 wrote:
| Very cool. Looks like it could use some more controls to reduce
| bad data. For example the Dove year 9999 data point.
|
| I would love to see a list of Parent companies. Single brands
| will be hard to remember.
| robertheadley wrote:
| Great, but manual input and seems to be focused on the UK. I
| think someone needs to brute force this problem.
| realjohng wrote:
| Fabulous... I heart data
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