SHRINKFLATION – What is it and have you noticed it?

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I can’t believe I’m going to start this post on Shrinkflation with the words ‘When I was young’. Sadly, I’ve finally reached that age. I’ve actually been there for years but I don’t like to admit it.

In recent years the term Shrinkflation has been used in the media a lot. But what is Shrinkflation and have you noticed it? We’ll answer this question in this post but first, let’s relive our childhood a little 😁

A Little Bit of Nostalgia to Start Us Off

When I was young my family used to own a newsagents. Every Friday night was labelled ‘Friday night treat night’. Myself and my sister were each given £1.25 to spend in the shop downstairs, once the shop doors had shut and the lights had gone out. 

You wouldn’t believe what you could get for £1.25 back then. A can of coke was 30p (if I remember right). Chocolate bars like Mars, Marathon (now Snickers bars) and Spira bars if you remember those, could all be bought for about 25p each. Space Invader crisps were 10p a pack and let’s not forget a quarter bag of Choc Dip or Choc Nibbles – the stuff where the paper bag would always go soggy in the corner as you tipped it into your mouth – weren’t very expensive either.

The same was true of those little plastic sherbet sticks. The ones where you’d have to keep biting lower and lower down the plastic tube to get the last of the sherbet out! I can’t remember what they were called. 

And let’s not forget our old friend the 10p drink carton (full of E-numbers) with a straw attached. If you didn’t have a straw you could flip it upside down, bite off the bottom corner and then drink it that way. Then you could put it between your bike frame and tyre to make a loud whirring noise while you cycled off. Exciting!

Anyway, enough of my childhood nostalgia. The point of all this is that it was really, really hard to spend £1.25 on sweets and chocolate back then, at least without ruining your health.

Of course, we all know the effect that inflation has had. Nowadays, you’d be doing well if you could get a can of coke and a chocolate bar for £1.25! You might even have to go to B&M Stores shop to make that happen.

Today, though, we aren’t just facing the problem of inflation but also of a newer phenomenon called Shrinkflation. But what is Shrinkflation and have you noticed it?

What is Shrinkflation? 

A recent campaign launched to reduce the price of the famous Freddo bar to just 5p has brought the issue of Shrinkflation back into the spotlight. But what is Shrinkflation?

Shrinkflation is the process of the price of an item increasing, while at the same time getting smaller in size.

Shrinkflation has been in the news an awful lot in recent years. Many products and well-known brands have been accused of it. To me, though, the biggest outrage seems to have been dished out (mind the pun) in the confectionary sector, specifically with chocolate! 

Shrinkflation in Boxes of Chocolates

Boxes of chocolates such as Roses and Quality Street have been in the news recently. This is because the cost of these sharing boxes has risen substantially, while at the same time getting much, much smaller. It’s not just the size of the chocolate boxes that are getting unbearably small, it’s also the chocolates themselves. 

A report from a company called ICE36, for example, found that boxes of Cadbury’s Roses have shrank by a whopping 35% between 2013 and today. Back in 2013 a box of Cadbury’s Roses weighed 850g and cost £5. In December of 2023 a box weighed only 550g and cost 50p more at £5.50. We all know inflation went crazy over the last couple of years but still, this level of Shrinkflation seems to defy logic a little. The level of Shrinkflation even led to calls for a boycott of purchases of these ever popular chocolate boxes!

To defend these changes in size and price, the manufacturers often blame the cost of raw materials like Cocoa, which they say has increased in cost drastically due to climate change and poor harvests. Then we also have the increase in energy costs due to the war in Ukraine and the resulting increase in interest rates. Finally, I suppose the sugar tax will also play a part, as well as the higher wages now being paid to cover the rising cost of living. 

Shrinkflation in the Legendary Freddo Bar

And returning to our old friend the legendary Freddo bar, we see a huge rise in price in recent decades. When the Freddo bar was relaunched in 1994 it cost just 10p and weighed 18g. The price stayed at this level for 10 years despite inflation. From the mid 2000’s, though, the price started to gradually creep up. I’m sure if you’re a Freddo fan you’ll remember the day you first walked into a shop to see a 15p price tag! ‘Oh no’, you thought. ‘I’ll have to leave the caramel one today and just buy the plain chocolate’… ‘I’ll just have to have one’ 😩.

The price kept rising and rising in subsequent years, reaching a peak of 30p today. During this time the amount of chocolate fluctuated, actually going slightly bigger for a brief period and then being reduced again. We should say, though, that it’s difficult to accuse Cadbury’s of Shrinkflation when it comes to the Freddo bar – at least in my eyes anyway – as the bar was originally 18g and it remains the same today.

The problem with a Freddo is simply the level of inflation in the price. The rise from 10p in 1994 to its current price of 30p is a hard one to ‘stomach’. This is especially true when the Bank of England’s inflation calculator for goods and services says it should only really be about 20p. I know, however, there will be exceptions to this general rule.

I have to say, I found it mildly amusing when I checked the current price of a Freddo on the Sainsbury’s website earlier today and it was 30p, even though the image showed a price of 25p… such is the speed of the price rise of Britain’s favourite chocolate frog. 

What about other products?

Of course, it’s not just chocolate where brands are being accused of Shrinkflation. It has shown up in many other products too, from Gravy to Tea Bags, accusations of Shrinkflation have been showing up all over the place. What are the worst cases of Shrinkflation you have seen? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!