First of all, a little definition of this marketing and sales strategy, even if the origin of the concept is uncertain. The term "shrinkflation" is derived from the English verb " to shrink " and the word "inflation". It is also referred to as "reductionflation" in French.

In fact, the current inflation impacts all sectors of the economy and in particular, the food industry whose production costs are increasing. The big groups are therefore seeking, among other practices, to pass on these additional costs to consumers. One of the solutions used by some brands is to reduce the size of their products but not their price, and this, without having systematically warned the consumers beforehand.

For years, theNGO Foodwatch, which fights for transparency in the food industry, has again alerted on this practice, increasingly denounced by consumer associations.

A few rare groups have broached the subject. For example, in July 2022, PepsiCo, the food giant, mentioned that it would prefer not to increase the price of products on the shelves (in order to avoid a drop in sales) but would instead opt for a reduction in the quantity of product in each pack... In this case, cereals and potato chips from the group.

According to John Plassard, an agri-food expert at the Mirabeau Fund, about 2% of products are affected. In practice, one product out of 50 sold in supermarkets would be susceptible to this "trick".

Given the current economic situation, it is to be feared that this phenomenon will increase, especially since the prices of packaging and raw materials have exploded in recent months. Thus, the European Union could enter a recession at the end of the year and suffer a higher inflation than expected, especially in repercussion of the soaring energy prices linked to the war in Ukraine, the European Commission has warned.

In order to limit the shrinkflation, one of the existing safeguards is the service of the Repression of Fraud which currently exercises many controls on the subject. Unfortunately, it seems that these controls confirm the practice. Thus, last September, one store out of 10 would have been surprised to have modified the labels without having informed the consumer of the reduction of the volume proposed to the sale.

If the customer is not used to systematically checking the price per kilo, he will not be able to compare and consequently be informed of volume drops on certain products.

The concern about the purchasing power being more than ever necessary, it would be desirable that the State legislates and makes evolve or specifies certain articles of the code of the consumption.

The difficulty is that, as long as the new weight of a product is well indicated on the packaging, this practice does not constitute fraud...