40 Shrinkflation Examples That’ll Have You Measuring Everything In Your Pantry
Remember when a Cadbury Creme Egg was the size of an actual egg? Now it’s what, a quail egg? The Toblerone gaps are so wide you could park a Smart car between the peaks. Five Guys now gives you three guys’ worth of fries. Nobody sent a memo saying “we’re downsizing everything and banking on you being too exhausted to notice the package redesign.”
This is shrinkflation in its purest form. The same shelf space, same branding, less product, more profit margin. Corporate greedflation dressed up as “new look, same great taste!”
Consumers have noticed and taken to the internet to share their finest examples of shrinkflation.
1. “Pasta sauce getting 8% smaller and water is now first ingredient vs tomatoes”
“Bonus: 450mg of potassium is now 13% of DV!
And since the ingredients are being changed that much, I’m not sure the nutrition facts are now accurate.”
2. “McDonald’s denies changes to burger sizes”
“A spokesperson for McDonald’s told Yahoo News there have been no changes to the size of its burgers.
The spokesperson emphasised McDonald’s commitment to quality and great value for its customers.
‘We are committed to offering our customers great quality, great value burgers featuring 100% real meats and the freshest of products. The sizes have not changed.,’ said the spokesperson.”
3. “They came for the pool noodles”
4. “How is this not illegal?”
“Unfortunately, Walmart is the only place I can find this kind of cheese within 100 miles of where I live.
They are consistently at least a half ounce short. I’ve weighed it 3 times before, unfortunately this was the first time I actually used my brain and took a photo of it.
How is this legal?”
5. “Subway before and after”
6. “Here’s my large fry without a single one in the bag or eaten.”
7. “Bigger bottle. Less shampoo.”
8. “Sewing kits are now affected by Shrinkflation :(“
“Last years kit on the left. New unopened kit on the right. The lid has even been indented so the contents doesn’t rattle around. The tin width is still the same however and they (thankfully) still stack.”
9. “I measured a 8 inch tortilla… Guess what I found?”
10. “12.6% decrease in size by weight with a price increase does not make me Feel Good”
11. “A new low from Colgate”
12. “Snickers ‘yard’ with hollow cardboard center”
13. “That new Tropicana just dropped.”
14. “My quart of milk only had 3 cups of milk in it”
15. “A ‘roll’ of wrapping paper at Target”
“One roll can only handle two or three presents now… skip Target if you need gift wrap!”
16. “I’ve been mad about this for weeks. 75% air. My hands are small as heck and I could hold all of it in my palm what do you mean ‘share size'”
17. “This Shrinkflation of Toblerone in the UK, is still mind-boggling…”
18. “When you make the popsicle smaller, but don’t adjust the popsicle stick size or how far the machine dips it in chocolate.”
“Sad to see that it used to be an inch longer. Funny that it’s too expensive to re-machine”
19. “String cheese I get every week, left is old and right is new (all the new ones in the bag were smaller)”
20. “Seriously?”
“All stick. $6 for these”
21. “From 72 cookies to 40… And they have the audacity to raise the price by 50¢!”
“They removed the price tag for the 12pack, but there was a couple stuffed in the back of the shelf. Needless to say, I got the bigger one (which still had its older price).”
22. “I know its cold in the refrigerated section, but come on walmart.”
23. “Opened a Mars Bar today and my day has been ruined”
24. “Breyers is no longer considered ‘Ice Cream'”
25. “Kellogg’s cereal weight doesn’t match the contents”
26. “Now with 5 bars!”
“This box of 6 was tucked in the back with a bunch of new “now with 5 bars” (wow!) boxes. Took it up to the register, but it wouldn’t scan. Luckily the guy gave it to me for the same price point.”
27. “New Hershey’s bottle just dropped”
“Now 34% more expensive per gram”
28. “Over the years”
29. “Taquitos are basically a scam nowadays. They’re almost 50% empty, every single one of them. Left one was the same but I left it unbroken for scale in the photo.”
“The whole box was like this, so was the last one. I thought the last box as a fluke, I guess I’m just a moron flying it again and supporting this. They’re 55% filling, 45% greasy flavorless tortilla on the ends. Last time I saw them in supermarkets was a number of years ago and you would occasionally get a bad one but most of them would be filled end-to-end and oftentimes you’d actually have the problem of biting one and having it leak out of the other side.”
30. “This used to be a premium ice cream”
31. “The difference in fry sizes”
32. “Sometimes I like to flip the chips in the store shelves..”
33. “Anything to save a buck I guess”
34. “This irritates me to no end.”
“I bought a new cake mix box, not realizing I already have one from a earlier in the year sitting in my pantry. And to my surprise I realized how much less was in a box but in all likelihood costing more than it did.”
35. “This is getting out of hand”
36. “Where’s my candy?”
37. “Does this count or are they just lying?”
“Hey idk math very well but pretty sure 173 doesn’t equal 227?”
38. “Just opened this pack of Pringles it’s just disappointing”
39. “What am I not surprised?”
40. “McDonald’s meat is now thinner than its cheese”
