It turns out that sneaky bastards running supermarkets have been ripping off their customers by reducing the size of goods without reducing the price.
It may not come as a surprise to savvy consumer but research by Which? has suggested that some everyday items in your shopping basket have shrunk, in what amounts to a stealth price hike for customers, the Daily Mail reports.
This dishonest scheme allows brands to protect their profit margins without upsetting customers by raising prices, and this latest report claims that biscuits and toilet rolls are amongst the worst offenders.
So while you may have thought that your flatmate was taking the piss with the amount of bog roll he was using, in fact he’s not guilty.
Which? found that the number of sheets on each roll of Andrex had dropped from 240 to 221. Yet the price of four rolls has scandalously remained around the £2 mark!
Even worse news for people with a sweet tooth McVitie’s Digestives dark chocolate biscuits has decreased in size by over 10 per cent from 332g to 300g while staying the same price.
To be fair the report also shows that some supermarkets have cut prices when the product has become smaller with both Sainsburys and Waitrose reducing the cost of Percol fairtrade Guatemala coffee when the serving went from 227g to 200g.
However despite the cut, shoppers were still left paying more per 100g than they were originally!
Meanwhile, the crafty buggers over at ASDA left the cost of Tropicana’s orange and raspberry juice at £2.48, even though the carton size had been cut from a litre to 850ml.
Richard Headland, Which? editor said:
Shrinking products can be a sneaky way of increasing prices. We want manufacturers and supermarkets to be upfront about shrinking products so consumers aren’t misled.
So if this is all true can Cadbury please admit that they’re shrinking Creme Eggs? We all know it’s true!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.