Shrinkflation Intensifies – Stealth Inflation As Thousands of Food Products Shrink In Size, Not Price
By: GoldCore
GoldSeek.com
Monday, 5 February 2018
– Shrinkflation continues to take hold across UK, Ireland and US for sixth year running
– Shrinkflation sees consumers gets less product, but at the same or increased price
– 2,500 products have shrunk according to Office of National Statistics in UK
– Reported inflation is between 1.7% and 3% but actually much higher
– Shrinkflation is financial fraud, unreported inflation in stealth mode
– Gold is hedging inflation and shrinkflation
Two bars of the Toblerone Swiss chocolate. New style 150 gram bar showing the reduction in triangular pieces (front) and older style 360 gram bar at back. Credit: Alastair Grant via The Telegraph
Your wallet might still be feeling the pinch after Christmas. Shrinkflation means this is likely to continue. Now in its sixth (official) year the phenomenon that sees you get less product for the same price is beginning to be covered more frequently.
Another example of this came last week when McVitie’s biscuits, some of the most popular digestive biscuits in the UK and Ireland, saw a 20% cut in volume, but not in price.
Officially, inflation is pretty low across the developed world. In the US, it is so low (1.8%) that it is proving to be a cause for concern for policy wonks. It is 1.7% in the EU and in the UK it is at 3%. None of those readings are a true reflection of where prices really are and how much the cost of living has increased.
One of the best measures of inflation is shrinkflation. We’ve written about it before in reference to Toblerones and toilet rolls. This time, its all about the Brits’ and Irish precious McVitie’s Digestive biscuits.
Last month the manufacturer announced they were shrinking the packet a 500g packet of 34 biscuits down to 400g. The price will be 10p less, but this is nowhere near the 20% cut in product amount.
The Rest…HERE
