To never buy Anchor butter again?

[Alittlegusty]

I feel well and truly duped and am so annoyed.
They were on ‘special offer’ and cheaper than Tesco standard so I bought a few for Christmas baking.

They looked the same size as the other butters..

But I’ve gone to use one and it’s 200 grams instead of 250 grams..

The weight is well hidden on the back.

Scammers!

I’m NEVER buying Anchor butter again!

But also it’s just processed cream and salt, you don’t need to buy branded.

Everyone who is just realising Anchor butter is smaller than supermarket brands, you can tell the minute you pick it up out of the fridge that it's lighter and so smaller. Does nobody else realise this? Also, Anchor/Lurpack have been smaller for months!

I noticed straightaway but it still annoyed me.

I only noticed this a few weeks ago because I buy my shopping on line so I was comparing the prices per gram that they print on line and noticed then that some butters are 200:grams and others 250 grams. They should be standard size !

It's called shrinkflation and it's been happening for years, sadly ;0(

"It's not getting smaller, you're just getting bigger..."

@Cookerhood both the butter and the spreadable butter by president is all milk and cream. Lurpack butter packs have shrunk and the tubs of spreadable are mixed with oil. I used to buy butterpacks by lurpack but since they shrunk have moved to president. I wouldnt go back even if president shrunk, to me it tastes better

Shrinkflation Tesco also stopped selling 6 pints of milk to rip customers off.

It's £1.60 at Tesco for 200g. I hadn't noticed but always buy the cheapest or one on offer.

Sounds like something Tesco would do.

I only noticed this a few weeks ago because I buy my shopping on line so I was comparing the prices per gram that they print on line and noticed then that some butters are 200:grams and others 250 grams. They should be standard size !

Maybe it's just me, but I wonder how come certain kinds of product always seem to be the same size - regardless of the price.

I believe there is/was a specific law (EU?) for bread, that loaves have to be either 800g or 400g; but how come no manufacturer ever happened to sell 275g, or 315g or 350g blocks of butter? It's not like they're selling gloves or socks or potato peelers - based on the size of the typical person's body, or parts thereof.

If they currently work with an eye on their competitors all the time - i.e. they don't want to be obviously dearer than a comparable rival brand, with customers not noticing that they give you an extra 40g for your money, meaning that they are not actually dearer - we can be assured that they will all follow suit with the reduction in size before long.

Shrinkflation Tesco also stopped selling 6 pints of milk to rip customers off.

Why would they do that, rather than just maintaining a price differential between the different sizes? It's not like anybody wouldn't instantly notice the difference between a 4-pinter and a 6-pinter.

Yes, 6-pinters tend to work out a bit cheaper, but there's nothing to stop them from charging exactly 50% more for 6 pints. People who wouldn't/couldn't use 8 pints will then buy 6 pints from them, rather than just 4 - and increasing sales is surely what all supermarkets want?

Is anyone actually writing to these companies to complain? Just curious?

Same with Coffee Mate - same price; smaller pack.

What would you complain about?

The price of food is rising. So either you get a smaller amount for the same price as before, or you get the usual amount you like but you pay more.

Often, the more of something you buy, the less you pay per unit mass / volume

So that's why a 10 kg pack of rice is less per kg than a 500 g pack of rice.

YANBU, but this is happening all over the place now. So if you follow this policy, you'll be unable to buy anything! I'd been caught with cheese, coffee and chocolate before I caught on and now check everything.
Farm Foods do butter in 225g (or maybe 227g) packs, but sometimes it is still cheaper per 100g than Aldi (next door here.)
And it's not just a one-off thing. 200g -> 190g ->180g -> ?? with, as far as I can tell, no change to the packaging.
The similar thing I noticed a long time ago is confectionery bars and packs. A bar which is in one shop for 50p and another for 45p might be 47g and 43g.
The supermarkets sometimes try to help( or why?) by putting a price per 100g or similar, but you need good eyesight to read it.

The supermarkets sometimes try to help( or why?) by putting a price per 100g or similar, but you need good eyesight to read it.

that's a legal requirement but that 'price comparison' is also exploited by supermarkets.

just the other day for jaffa cakes at a big supermarket. own brand, big pack branded and small pack branded. one pack showed 'price per serving' (but without saying what a serving actually is), another price per 100g, the other price per 10 pieces. how do you compare the price with this?

Tesco got into trouble with this

Which? reports Tesco to CMA over pricing of Clubcard offers | Tesco | The Guardian

The consumer group Which? has reported Tesco to the UK’s competition watchdog over the supermarket’s failure to provide detailed pricing information on its loyalty card offers.

The group said the UK’s largest retailer had not clearly explained the unit price of deals for its Clubcard holders – such as the price per 100g or 100ml – so that shoppers could easily compare value for money between different sized packages, bottles, brands and retailers.

It said the lack of unit pricing could be a “misleading practice” under consumer protection regulations because it could make it difficult for shoppers to determine which was the cheapest product.

In one example, Which? found a 700g bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup in Tesco for which the label showed the standard price to be £3.90, or 55.7p per 100g. A prominent Clubcard label showed the same size bottle on offer at £3.50, but the unit price, which would be 50p per 100g, was not given

At the same time a 910g bottle of the same ketchup on the shelf below was priced at £3.99, or 43.8p per 100g, for all shoppers, making it the cheapest option per 100g. Which? argued many shoppers would wrongly assume the Clubcard option was the best deal available.

I have noticed this - the Clubcard deal looks tempting but it's still better to buy a bigger item as you get more for your money. The Clubcard deal does not include the price per kg etc.

And then you have prices per 100g next to prices per Kg. Some people struggle to convert between the 2.

I have trained myself to look at the price per 100g when deciding what to buy - it's the only way to avoid being ripped off by often confusing prices and offers.

The Competition and Marketing Authority reviewed Unit Pricing. You can find their report and an open letter here.

Unit pricing - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The review identified several practices that we think are problematic, and which are likely to prevent consumers from making informed decisions when comparing products. In summary, the practices of concern are:

• examples of missing or incorrectly calculated unit pricing information – in some supermarkets and variety store retailers we saw isolated examples of this; however, in other variety store retailers we reviewed we found missing information across whole product ranges

examples of incorrect units of measurement – we saw examples of some grocery retailers using grams and millilitres as standard when the PMO requires most products to be unit priced by kilogram and by litre;

• different unit metrics being used for the same type of product, such as liquid laundry detergent – both within the same retailer and across different grocery retailers in-store and online – making it hard for shoppers to compare prices on a like-for-like basis;

• issues with unit pricing for products on promotion – we found grocery retailers are taking different approaches to displaying unit prices for products on promotion both in-store and online, with some grocery retailers not displaying unit prices for discounted products at all;

• examples of unit prices in-store, particularly among the variety stores, which we consider are difficult to read;

• certain pages on some grocery retailers’ websites not providing a unit price alongside a selling price until individual items were selected

We expect grocery retailers to:

• ensure that they unit price all their products of the same type using the same metric;

• display the unit price of each product clearly next to the product and selling price instore and online;

• give unit prices for products on promotion for all types of promotions where this is feasible. For example, for price reductions, promotions where a loyalty price is presented alongside a standard selling price, and multi-buy promotions for products of the same price and size across both in-store and online;

• review staff practices, procedures and training so that mistakes in unit price labelling do not occur.

Because the massive amounts of market data they have tell them that there's a cut off point that people where demand will drop off. This is not always tied into value for money but just what proportion of an allowed budget it represents.

If you have a 20/day budget for example and you want steak but you need 15 for everything else then that steak has to cost under 5 or you're buying chicken. In this instance a 6 quid steak isn't good for the supermarket and it's useless to you.

This is easier to understand with something like sugar tax, there's no driving reason for the companies to take the sugar out other than cost, they could just charge more, but market data tells them that at £x/ unit people stop buying it and buy something else, so the sugar comes out and they can maintain the price point that maximises volume. Same thing with dwindling ABV and chocolate getting more and more shit

Twinings have done this too. I think it's a 3rd less tea bags!

@MadMadaMim - yes. From 100 to 80 to bags.
We used to order x4 boxes of x4 100 (so 1600) at a time for annual overseas delivery. Only get 1280 now in same order, and the price has increased