Is that snack chocolate or 'chocolatey'? How skimpflation might be affecting your groceries
CBC
Daniel Noël of Sherbrooke, Que., stopped snacking on Quaker Dipps granola bars last year after he took a bite and noticed something was up.
The bar tasted "very old," Noël, 51, told CBC News in an email. "I first thought that the product was way over its expiration date."
It wasn't. So Noël compared the ingredient list on the bar's box with older packaging and made a discovery: the Dipps bars' previous milk chocolate coating, made with cocoa butter, had been replaced with a "chocolatey coating" made with a typically cheaper fat — palm oil.
"I feel that I've been fooled," said Noël. "It's not the same product. It's not the same taste."
You've probably heard about shrinkflation: when manufacturers shrink a product, but not its price.
But you may be less acquainted with skimpflation: when companies swap out ingredients in food products for cheaper ones — also without lowering the price.
"It's really an unknown, sneaky way to give you less for your money," said Boston-based consumer watchdog Edgar Dworsky, who tracks both skimpflation and shrinkflation.
He believes the recent spike in inflation has sparked a rise in skimpflation, as companies grapple with rising supply costs.
But it's difficult to gauge the extent of the practice, because it's hard to detect.
"We don't know the recipe," said Dworsky. "So it's very easy to pull the wool over our eyes."
Quaker's owner, U.S.-based PepsiCo, did not respond to requests for comment about the switch to the "chocolatey coating" made with palm oil.
According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, products must meet certain criteria to be labelled "chocolate", including a specified minimum amount of cocoa butter and powder, and no vegetable oils.
"It appears that [Quaker has] replaced the milk chocolate ingredient to something that doesn't meet the standard of identity for Canada. So now they're calling it 'chocolatey coating,'" said Jennifer Lee, a registered dietitian and doctoral candidate in nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.
Noël said he didn't notice the recipe change when he bought the Dipps bars, as the older and current packaging look very similar. The current box, however, no longer boasts that the bars are "made with real milk chocolate."
