Is anyone else discombobulated by shrinking product sizes?

[Begonne]

I’ll admit I’m completely scatterbrained and there’s probably a more efficient way to organise a household but I didn’t used to have to actively think about the quantities I buy, and a certain amount of shopping was on automatic pilot. But now things keep changing size, and where one packet did for a week, we fall short. Or I buy two and have some over and either forget to top up or buy another and have to find space to store the extra.

Now I have to constantly stop and check the price and try to guess if the package has shrunk, or rejig a meal plan because you didn’t spot that 1kg has shrunk to 800g, and it all just adds to the mental load, along with totting up the running totals, and the general anxieties about costs.

I know shrinking sizes is keeping things affordable but is anyone else just head wrecked by it?

Mince has gone from 500 to 400g and up 25p in price.

Randomly we were in a museum in Ireland where an artist years ago had gold plated the monster munch from a standard bag, my kids were horrified by how many there were, now you get 7 in a multipack. Yes we counted.

Mars and Twix bars are minute!!!

Shower gel down from 250ml to 225ml

I had to have 2 single finger twixes just to make a normal size single one other night, my first chocolate in months

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper

Shrinkflation, brilliant, nicking that 😂

Sometimes I look at my kids snacking and think they go through three times the junk I did at their age and then I remember a bag of crisps back then was actually a snack that would satisfy you for an hour or two, not just a bag of air with a pinch of crisps in the bottom.

You know what I wouldn't mind shrinking though, tins of coke. 330ml is slightly too much and I always have a bit left in the tin.

Aargh yes 200g butter instead of 250g, but more expensive. It's a swizz.

The packs of 5 instead of 6 started well before last year in last bout of shrinkflation - there are 5 of us so we noticed didn't notice them going back up to 6 since then.

Now even more are 5 and often smaller as well and some are dropping to 4 - which causes issues for us as mean we then need two or someone goes without.

I bought a pack of butter recently, l needing 200g for a recipe.
Cut a chunk off, weighed the remainder with hope of congratulating myself at how close to exactly 50g I removed. I was very confused when I only had 155g butter on my scales; checked the packet and discovered it was just 200g.

The very essence of discombobulation.

DH unwrapped a Cadburys Brunch bar and we laughed at the size. Was ridiculously small.

Monster Munch were 26.5g in the 1980s (you can see the packets on Google), and now a multipack bag is 20g. If there's 7 in a packet now, you'd only have got 9 back then. So there's some element of misremembering, or the crisps themselves have changed size. Ditto Walker's Crisps - from 30 to 25g, but that shrinkage happened years ago.

I noticed this with McCain Oven Chips .We don't have them very often as Immusually make my own but my husband felt like them .There was only enough for two people if even that in the bag .The rest was air !

My cats have noticed Whiskas have reduced the size of their pouches from 100g to 85g. They probably could do with the reduced size for their diet
but definitely do not appreciate it!

Shrink inflation has been operating for a while but I'm more discombobulated by your washing powder usage. Are you using a. 130 wash box every three weeks?

That can't be possible surely or are you only buying the small size?

I haven't even got a bloody cat, and this is the one that I've noticed recently that most irritates me. What the hell use is this for something that people use a sachet of? Do they really think people are just going to start feeding their cats 15% less?

@VisionsOfSplendour ha - no. The biggest one Sainsburys sell of Fairy used to be 65 washes and is now 50 - and we get through that every 3-4 weeks (5 of us, and two adults both exercise 4-5 times a week).

Yep - I feed my cat 15g less. I'm not opening 2 sachets! Her biscuit bowl gets topped up a bit more often to compensate.

Cat food was the biggest example of shrinkflation I've noticed - it used to be between £10-£11 for a box of 40x 100g, now it's £13-£14 for 40x85g. That's a big difference.
And the boxes of 12 were almost always on some kind of offer somewhere, but not any more.

Yes! Bought some of the individual Twix fingers and thought I'd accidentally picked up the funsize ones.... Nope, they're just ridiculously small now.

I know exactly what you mean, feel completely discombobulated and it just makes my brain ache because you have to think more/calculate more for many things / transactions. Post covid, as if life wasn't hard enough, harder. Now they do these kind of things.

I noticed that this week. I also noticed how tiny the bars are in a Twirl multi pack.

I agree it’s most discombobulating when products change size by stealth.

Didn’t a lot of the shrinkage start to happen when the calories and nutrition traffic lights had to be listed on packs? The crisps for example would have been red all over in the older sizes so now a smaller pack appears more ‘healthy’ hence why I can eat 3 2 bags and feel no shame 🫣

I decant almost all products into labelled tubs at home. Anything from biscuits to crisps to meat in the freezer. Now none of it fits in the tubs right! And the giant bulk items are just the normal size now!

Chocolate is definitely a big difference to me, and biscuits and even basics like pasta and cous cous.

Yes to everything mentioned and I want to add Jaffa cakes.
Always had 12 in a pack, a good number to share. Now there’s 10 in a pack and three of us. I feel a bit miffed every time I use a down sized product, do they really think we won’t notice!

I received some Andrex toilet roll as a sub the other day. Couldn't believe it! The inner tube was HUGE and the toilet roll very loosely rolled around.
That used to be the posh brand, now it's crap! (no pun intended)