John Rees reports on new ways the corporations are giving you less for your money

Food prices are on the rise again, but price rises are not the only way corporations are getting you to pay more for less.

They are also shrinking the amount that you get for your money. It’s a thing. And it’s even got a name: shrinkflation.

Consumer magazine Which? has been charting what is going on.

They found that right across the spectrum of supermarket goods, the manufacturers are now not only cutting the size of a wide range of goods but also cutting the quality.

Take one absolute staple: PG Tips tea bags. Shoppers are getting 22% less tea for 27% more money. Boxes of PG Tips Tasty Decaf Pyramid tea bags went from containing 180 bags to just 140. Some stores also dropped the price, but at Ocado the price actually rose from £4 to £5.09 despite the size reduction. That’s a 64% cost increase per tea bag.

And if that’s left a bad taste in your mouth you could try some Listerine mouthwash. But Listerine’s Fresh Burst mouthwash has also shrunk from 600ml to 500ml. At Tesco, it also went up in price by 52p – meaning shoppers paid 21% more for 17% less. When you work it out per 100ml, that’s a price increase of a staggering 46%.

Which? recorded similar hidden price rises for less across a huge range of products, including Colgate toothpaste, Kettle Chips Sea Salt and Crushed Black Pepper Crisps -shrunk from 150g to 130g at Tesco, Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter – down from 225g to 180g at Morrisons and Sainsbury’s, McVitie’s Digestives Dark Chocolate Biscuits – down from 433g to 400g at Morrisons and Tesco, and Yeo Valley Organic Salted Spreadable – where 20% of a pack has disappeared at Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

But that’s not all. Quality is being shrunk as well. Morrisons The Best Lasagne now has less beef, down from 30% to 26%. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Lasagne Ready Meal has also shrunk the beef from 28% to 26%. As have Tesco from 23% beef to 19% in their Beef Lasagne, and 7% of the chicken has gone from Tesco’s Chicken Enchiladas. In Waitrose Butter Chicken Curry the chicken has vanished from 47% to 41%. And in Yeo Valley Spreadable Butter there is 4% less butter. 

Despite the fact that this is ‘stealthflation’, price increases that corporations try to hide from consumers, the attempt to disguise price gouging isn’t working. The vast majority of shoppers, 77%, have noticed shrinkflation in the last year. But 45% said they would prefer product sizes to stay the same and that firms just make open prices increases if they must.

Three quarters of shoppers in the Which? survey said shrinkflation was not a transparent practice and 76% said it wasn’t helpful.

The massive price gouging of a couple of years ago peaked in April 2023 with food inflation at 17%. But while food-price inflation has decreased since then, the fact that inflation is there at all means prices are still rising. And now food inflation is now rising again, up 1.2% from last November, and that’s without taking ‘shrinkflation’ into account.

The huge supermarket conglomerates are raking in the profits. Tesco, the  biggest supermarket chain saw pre-tax profits more than double from £882 million to hit £2.3bn in the year to February 2024. Asda, Britain’s third biggest supermarket group, reported a 24% jump in annual earnings to over 1 billion pounds.

But the supermarket profits look modest compared to those of food manufacturers. American giant Kraft-Heinz supersized their profits by a whopping 448% in the year to 2023.

The Mars family, whose company is famous for Mars bars, Skittles, M&M’s, and Snickers, but which also makes a lot of packaged food, pet food, and more, boasts six billionaire members who are together worth about $115 billion. Between 2020 and 2021, they added $21 billion to their fortunes. Mars is one of the UK’s largest food firms. 

Another giant of the UK food market is Unilever, which also manufactures toiletries. Their underlying operating profit rose 17% this year.

Kettle Foods, makers of crisps and biscuits, have seen a 145% increase in profits, with pre-tax profits at nearly £3 million. Meat and seafood packers, the Hilton Food Group, saw pre-tax profits were up 20% to £66 million. 

The provision of affordable good quality food is a basic requirement of any civilised society. By that marker, the food manufacturing giants and the supermarkets are failing the society of which they are a part.

The truth is that every day is Black Friday for the food industry bosses.