An overseas supermarket is trying a new tactic to shame brands for ‘shrinkflation’, where products become smaller without reduced prices, but don’t expect to see it tried in Australia anytime soon.

Carrefour, the eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, has signalled to customers in France that major brands such as Lipton, Lindt chocolate and Viennetta ice cream are shrinking in size, but not price, with signs on the shelf.

Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at the QUT Business School, told The New Daily that ‘shrinkflation’ most commonly happens because producers of goods are met with increased costs in production.

“Input costs are higher, wheat costs more, cocoa is higher for chocolate, there are electricity costs, road transportation costs and wage costs,” he said.

“We all end up paying more at the checkout, or do they put less in the packet?”

Carrefour is one of the world’s biggest supermarkets. Photo: Getty

Calling out manufacturers

Carrefour is France’s second-largest grocer and has identified 26 products that have shrunk in their stores, including infant milk formula produced by Nestle and foods made by PepsiCo.

Stefen Bompais, director of client communications at Carrefour, said the “aim in stigmatising these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to rethink their pricing policy.”

Carrefour’s stickers simply alert customers to when the size has reduced, but prices have not.

Australian supermarkets are unlikely to follow suit anytime soon, with Coles and Woolworths both contacted for comment but choosing not to respond to questions about how they communicate changing sizes to customers and if they’d consider something similar in the future.

Here in Australia, consumers have taken to calling out the supermarkets instead. Photo: Grassroots Action Network Tasmania

Mortimer said supermarkets have adopted a “contents reduction strategy,” in an effort to maximise profits.

“Allen’s lollies reduced the size of the packs of lollies, while Cadbury chocolate went from 250 grams to somewhere around 180 grams,” he said.

“You can look across the board and see where it happens.”

While it is the manufacturer’s decision to reduce product size, often consumers are left with no knowledge of the change.

One famous example is Cadbury Creme Eggs, which reduced in size while Cadbury told consumers that ‘Creme Eggs aren’t getting smaller, you’re just getting bigger.”

Office actor BJ Novak subsequently went on Conan O’Brien and proved that contrary to what the company said, the Creme Eggs were in fact getting smaller.

Tweet from @PCLeftovers

What do consumers think?

Several Australian brands have experienced decreases in product size in recent years, including Cadbury chocolate, Pringles and Oreos.

Mortimer said research at QUT has shown that consumers would prefer to pay the same amount and receive less product than incur higher costs.

“One reason is loss aversion, we don’t actually want to lose any more money for the same product. If it’s a block of chocolate or a bag of potato chips, we would rather accept a little less, but pay the same,” he said.

“Another one is budgeting, if I set a budget of $150 a week for my grocery shopping, I’d rather spend $150 a week consistently, understanding that some of the products I might get a little less in.”

The research found getting less was preferable for both price increases and broth price increases and size increases.

Mortimer said the best to figure out if an item is shrinking is to look at the price per unit displayed on the supermarket shelves.

“The easiest way to determine if shrinkflation is impacting your favourite products is to look at the unit price on the shelf label, it determines the price per 100 grams,” he said.

“It is sometimes difficult for shoppers to determine whether their favourite products have reduced in size.”