Why Are Chocolate Bars Getting Smaller?
How manufacturers leverage inflation's secret weapon
I bought a bag of Cadbury Chocolate Buttons last week, generally accepted as the foremost sweet-aisle-option to accompany a cup of tea if you are eschewing the time-honoured ally of (several) biscuits. I had my hands full with other groceries at the time, which delayed a catastrophic discovery: the packet felt light and airy, like a nitrogen-injected bag of Doritos. I opened it, the kettle whistling in the background like a warning signal, and the true horror was unveiled: it contained fewer buttons than a rackload of open cardigans in Zara.
After a quick scan of other confectionary in the shop and some googling, I learned that the size reduction of sweet packets and chocolate bars over time while the price remains the same is called shrinkflation and has actually been going on for, well, forever. Margins for sweets, biscuits, and chocolate are tight as a drum and it’s a crafty way to eke extra cash out of consumers. For shrinkflation to go unnoticed in this instance, consumers must want to pay a specific price for a product, rather than receiving a specific amount. We have a pretty solid idea of how much we want to pay for a chocolate bar, and assign a mental value to it that we see as constant over time. Once we decide that €3 is The Correct Price for a big bag of Maltesers, for instance, we’re very hard to convince otherwise and would baulk at paying €5. When manufacturers face rising costs and inflation, they pass on the costs by lowering the weight or size of the product while charging the same price.
An example of consumers’ unwillingness to budge on chocolate prices would be the much-discussed Freddo, whose steady rise in price holds a particular space in the public consciousness (there is even a Freddo Index that tracks the scale of the crime). When you can vividly remember a lower price plastered on the outside of the packet or being able to pay for a chocolate bar with a single coin, you can’t pull the pricing wool over consumers’ eyes. A US equivalent might be the infamous $1.50 Costco hotdog and soda, where the wholesaler’s founder threatened to kill new CEO Craig Jelinek if he raised prices. I’m not sure if Jelinek might have found a workaround by sourcing shorter hotdogs or jamming more ice cubes into the cups of soda.
I’m far from the only one that has taken note: a 2018 BBC test tracking biscuits and chocolates found that costs for the consumer went up significantly over a four year period - some notable price rises were Kitkats (+62.7%), Twix (+54.7%), Jaffa Cakes (+27.3%) and Toblerones (+27%).
Shrinkflation doesn’t just affect chocolate and sweets, it’s just where we notice it the most (some even tried it with Guinness. Guinness!! In Ireland!! Needless to say, it didn’t work.). It hits every product from toilet paper (Angel Soft recently shrank by 25%) to nappies and teabags.
It’s interesting to consider the broad threat of shrinkflation when skyrocketing inflation has been dominating headlines for months on end. Inflation is measured by the consumer price index (CPI) - commonly referred to as the ‘basket of goods and services’ with an image of a shopping trolley filled with food and household items. The CPI tracks the price of tens of thousands of items per month and compares them to the previous month to get an idea of inflation and how much bang consumers are getting for their buck.
Here’s the problem: shrinkflation is incredibly hard to factor into inflation rates. The changes of the basket items in Ireland’s CPI reflect “only pure price changes” according to the Central Statistics Office. As far as I can tell, they measure the price tag, instead of the cost per 100g (for chocolate) or cost per sheet (for toilet paper). This plays into manufacturers hands, who want you to think you’re getting the same product for the same price, when in fact you’re often getting less.
Companies tend not to broadly advertise weight or quantity reductions in their products - the vast majority slip under the radar, unless they’re so egregious that consumers notice a physical difference in the product. This results in a distorted view of how much you spend on groceries: you might notice pricetag changes in certain products, but you probably don’t notice that you’re buying rolls of toilet paper every 10.5 weeks instead of every 11 weeks due to a reduction in the number of sheets per roll. Shrinkflation affects spending power incrementally, slowly bleeding consumers dry over a multi-year timeline. Have you noticed that you just have less disposable income, seen the rate of inflation and thought hey, that seems a little low? It probably is.
At a time when people are struggling to pay their bills, it feels horrible to realise we’re being deceived by manufacturers of trusted brands and essentially covering their costs. Manufacturers might use rising energy costs as a justification for shrinkflation while simultaneously availing of generous, government-backed energy supports (supported by tax revenues!). Sweets are one thing, but household essentials hit lower income households and young families below the belt just as they’re trying to tighten it - a record number of households in the UK are now relying on food banks and a recent survey reported that more than one million people in Ireland are struggling to make ends meet.
The fact that inflation runs across the full gamut of goods and services and is currently outpacing wage growth means that you’re gradually losing more disposable cash that might be used to save and build credit. Politicians like to tell the silly millennials to cut down on the avocado toast if they want to afford a house. But what if the avocado is half the size it used to be, or there are five slices fewer in your supermarket loaf?
Chocolate Buttons might get your initial attention if you have a sweet tooth like me, but a deeper consideration of shrinkflation is pretty topical during a cost of living crisis. The sad thing is that it misleads informed, price-conscious consumers, who can barely notice the extra coins slipping through the bars of their shopping trolleys.
Recommended Reading - 2023 Edition #5
Curation vs. Consumption
Is curation replacing creation as a mode of self-expression?
by Kyle Chayka in Kyle Chayka Industries
Read it because:
ofwrites brilliantly about how we act on social media (his upcoming book, ‘Filterworld’, examines the impact of algorithms on culture) and you might recognise some of your own habits in this thought-provoking post. If nothing else, it will make you think about why you post online, and who the hell is it all for, anyways?As he asks: “when everyone is doing so much curating, is it really that effective? Are we too distracted by our own recommendations to follow anyone else’s?”
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Act
What happens when the Terminator turns 75
by Mark Leibovich in The Atlantic
Read it because: it’s one of the best profile writers currently alive, following Arnold Schwarzenegger to Gold’s Gym in LA, a ceremony for Jamie Lee Curtis at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and… Auschwitz. Arnie doesn’t hold back (seemingly ever). It really shouldn’t need any more selling than that.
Robert Pattinson: A Dispatch From Isolation
Nobody in Hollywood is more suited to thriving during lockdown than Robert Pattinson. That is, if he can find his phone. Or turn on his computer. Or keep from burning down his kitchen.
by Zach Baron in GQ
Read it because: This is absolutely, 100%, the most batshit insane celebrity interview I have read. In a week where a study declared that the impact of the pandemic on mental health was minimal (to guffaws of internet derision), I thought it was worth revisiting a profile that only a COVID lockdown could have produced - a Hollywood A-Lister blows up his own microwave whilst on a Zoom call with a GQ reporter.
‘I Saw A Big Set Of White Teeth Coming Towards Me’: The People Who Survived Terrifying Wild Animal Attacks
How does it feel to fight off a predator in the wild? And what effect does it have on your life? Five people who lived to tell the tale explain
by Ammar Kalia in The Guardian
Read it because: sometimes the David Attenborough documentaries aren’t enough. It’s always incredible to hear what goes through the human mind when your life is in danger, but these accounts are more primal, more gripping, something that cannot be faked. On St. Patrick’s Week, it made me particularly grateful that the chap managed to get rid of all those snakes.
That’s all for this week folks - let me know if you enjoyed the recs (you can tap the ‘like’ button, reply to this mail or comment below) and if you know someone who would enjoy - just forward this mail. See you in a fortnight!
Links: Curation v Consumption, Schwarzenegger, Animal Attacks, Pattinson v. Microwave