Beware shrinkflation: A ‘pound’ of coffee? 12 ounces. Even soup cans are smaller.

“Dad, groceries are killing us!”

So said our younger son in a recent phone call from Minneapolis. He and his wife had both recently gotten pay raises, and for a while they actually had some money left after all the bills were paid.

Then, just like that, grocery prices took such a jump that any surplus money was a memory.

While the causes of gasoline price jumps are related to the Iran War and its effect on oil shipments, the causes of high grocery prices are less clear.

One thing is clear though: shrinkflation. This has been around a while but has gotten much worse lately.

Here are a few examples from my own experience.

My first recognition of this technique came from the coffee aisle. For as long as I can remember, most coffee had been sold in one-pound (16-ounce) containers. Once it was cans. Now it’s mostly bags.

When I picked up a “pound” of our usual brand, it felt a little light. Then I looked at the net weight: 12 ounces! Was the price lower? No. 

A more recent example came from the soup aisle. We were hungry for an old lunch staple: grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup. I picked up a can of soup and took it home. But when I heated the soup and poured it into two bowls, the bowls seemed a little less full than expected. A look at the soup can revealed that it was 10 ounces, not the long established 12-ounce size.

Lower price? Of course not!

Here is one more example. We have been using Smart Balance margarine for many years. I grabbed a couple containers and put them in the cart. But, when I got them home, I realized that they were 15 ounces, not the usual 16 ounces. 

Was it priced lower? No.

Why would the supplier do this? Clearly this change is not coming from the local stores. It’s coming from up the corporate food chain (pun intended)!

Imagine the big machine pouring margarine into the containers as they go by on some automated machinery. Into each container, it drops 15 ounces, not 16. After 16 containers are filled, the company has essentially filled one for free! Try multiplying that times the number of containers they sell across the vast grocery networks. It’s big money. And it’s not going into our pockets, or into the pockets of the good men and women who work in the grocery stores.

So, what to do? Eat a little less? That is a decision we should be making for ourselves and families. It shouldn’t be made by the corporate food industry.

Certainly, this shrinkflation is only one reason that grocery prices have jumped. Certainly, if you can afford it, you are going to have to buy more containers of food just to consume the amount you have been consuming. So, you pay more money.

What to do?

Sometimes, if you buy the store’s brands, they are still in the original-sized containers. Or maybe a cut-rate grocery story simply has lower prices.

We are retired. We have time to shop around and seek lower prices. Busy working folks have much less time.

If you have the time, start looking at the information printed on the face of each shelf just below the product. It tells you how much you are paying per ounce, per pound or per item, depending on the product. Sometimes it’s shocking to see that the “giant economy size” is not a bargain after all. Or that you are paying more per ounce in one sized container than another.

Then you have to consider the cost of the gas needed to travel to different stores. Does it pencil out? Or do the savings go into the gas tank?

Certainly, buying in bulk and splitting it up with friends and family could help. So could growing a garden.

But for the present, just be more observant and avoid the worst offenders, if possible.

Good luck with that!