The Shrinkflation Hit List: 12 Common Culprits in Your Grocery Cart
Shrinkflation isn’t random; it tends to appear in specific types of products where consumers are less likely to notice small changes. By knowing where to look, you can be extra vigilant. Here are twelve of the most common categories where downsizing is rampant.
Pantry Staples: The Foundation of Your Meals
1. Cereal: This is a classic example. Cereal boxes often maintain their height and width to take up the same amount of shelf space, but they become narrower. What was once a 15-ounce box of your favorite flakes might now be 13.5 ounces for the same price. The change is difficult to spot unless you’re looking at the net weight or the unit price.
2. Coffee: Ground coffee canisters are frequent offenders. The standard one-pound (16-ounce) can has all but vanished. It was replaced by 13-ounce cans, then 11.5-ounce, and now many are as small as 10.3 ounces. The can itself is often redesigned to look just as substantial.
3. Pasta: A traditional box of dried pasta was a full pound (16 ounces), a convenient amount for many family recipes. Now, it’s common to find boxes containing only 14, 13.25, or even 12 ounces. This not only costs you more per ounce but can also disrupt recipes that call for a full pound.
4. Canned Goods: Check the net weight on cans of soup, beans, and tuna. While the can size might look identical to what you’ve always bought, the amount of actual product inside can be reduced. A can of beans might drop from 15.5 to 15 ounces, a subtle but real price increase when multiplied across millions of units.
Snacks and Sweets: The Impulse Buys
5. Chips: The phrase “a bag of air” has never been more accurate. While some air is necessary to cushion the chips during shipping, manufacturers have steadily decreased the amount of product in their largest bags. A “party size” bag that was once 15 ounces might now be 13 ounces. The bag feels just as big, but the contents have dwindled.
6. Cookies and Crackers: Similar to cereal boxes, the outer packaging for cookies often stays the same size while the inner plastic tray is redesigned to hold fewer items. You might find one less row of cookies or a wider gap between cracker stacks. Again, the unit price per ounce is your only reliable guide.
7. Chocolate and Candy Bars: The slow whittling away of the classic candy bar is a story of gradual shrinkflation. A bar that was 2 ounces a decade ago may now be 1.55 ounces. The change happens so slowly over time that consumers rarely notice until they compare a new bar to an old wrapper.
8. Ice Cream: The incredible shrinking carton is one of the most well-known examples. The traditional half-gallon (64 fluid ounces) container has become a museum piece. It was first replaced by a 1.75-quart (56 fl oz) size, and now the standard is 1.5 quarts (48 fl oz). You are now paying the same price, or more, for a container that holds 25% less ice cream than the original.
Household and Personal Care: Beyond the Kitchen
9. Paper Products: This is a particularly tricky category. Toilet paper rolls are marketed with confusing terms like “Mega,” “Jumbo,” and “Super.” The only numbers that matter are the sheet count, the sheet size (some are narrower now), and the unit price per 100 sheets. A roll can look thick, but contain fewer sheets than the brand next to it. The same is true for paper towels.
10. Dish and Laundry Detergent: Liquid detergent bottles are a masterclass in deceptive packaging. A newly designed bottle might be taller with an ergonomic grip, making it seem more advanced and substantial. However, it often holds fewer fluid ounces or is formulated to provide fewer “loads” than the previous version. The cost per load is the key metric here.
11. Toothpaste: Check the ounces on your tube of toothpaste. A “standard” size tube has quietly shrunk over the years, moving from over 4 ounces down to 3.8 or even 3.5 ounces for the same price tier.
12. Bar Soap: Even a simple bar of soap is not immune. Bars are often molded with a more concave shape on the underside or have their dimensions slightly reduced, shaving a fraction of an ounce off the total weight. Over a multi-pack, that lost sliver of soap adds up.
