Many Canadians are fed up with shrinkflation. So what's being done about it?
CBC
PepperBrooks was getting ready to wash her dishes when she noticed something didn't add up.
The new bottle of Dawn Platinum she'd bought contained 431 millilitres of dish soap, 10 per cent less than an older bottle of the same product that she had in her cupboard.
Despite the difference, both bottles had cost the same.
"I'm not happy about it," said the Mississauga, Ont., marketing strategist who goes by the mononym PepperBrooks. "There was no notification. They didn't let me know as a consumer that I'm going to be getting less for the same [price]."
As Canadians struggle with rising prices for food and other household necessities, many are fed up with shrinkflation, a tactic where companies reduce the volume or weight of a product but not the price.
In many cases, few changes are made to the packaging, which makes the shrinkage harder to detect.
Dawn lists the millilitres on each bottle in small print. But PepperBrooks said if she didn't happen to have an older bottle of the dish soap, she never would have noticed that the new bottle contains less.
"I just felt a little bit like they were being dishonest," she said. "It's an ethical issue."
It's not just Canadians who are frustrated with shrinkflation. A recent Ipsos poll found that out of almost 25,000 adults surveyed in 33 countries, 48 per cent said the practice is unacceptable. In Canada, 64 per cent of respondents held that view. Only Turkey and France scored higher, at 66 and 67 per cent respectively.
That widespread disdain for shrinkflation has prompted some countries to take action.
Hungary and South Korea will soon join Brazil in mandating companies note on packaging when they shrink a product. France is aiming to follow suit.
Some Canadians say it's time for the federal government to also get involved.
"It needs to be regulated and it needs to be regulated now," said Janet Dermody of Sydney, N.S.
Dermody, an avid baker, said her frustration with shrinkflation boiled over last month when she discovered packages of Redpath sugar at her local Walmart had shrunk by 25 per cent, from two to 1.5 kilograms. Even so, it was still selling for the same price.
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