Manufacturers are trying to deceive Russians with shrink inflation: packaging is decreasing, prices are rising

The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed a solution to the problem: “It will take years to implement it”

Manufacturers may be prohibited from using reduced packaging in packaged food products. In order to combat grain inflation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade wants to oblige companies to produce goods only in standard containers – for example, milk in a 1 liter bag instead of 950 ml. The problem is that this will require decision-making at the level of technical regulations of the EAEU, and persuading several countries is troublesome and time-consuming. Meanwhile, market experts suggest that the ministry consider the idea of ​​introducing double price tags, indicating the unit cost and the “round” volume of the same product. But while the mass of goods in packaging decreases, and prices for them remain the same or even increase, the initiative with “talking” price tags is blocked from year to year.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade wants to prohibit producers of socially significant products (milk, sugar, sunflower oil, etc.) from using reduced packaging. Now they are “secretly” changing the container size downward, thereby abusing the trust of customers who may not always notice changes in volume.

Let us recall that with rising prices, “optimization” of product packaging has become increasingly common: not a “dozen” eggs, but “nines”, not a liter of milk, but 950 ml, not a kilo of buckwheat, but 800 g – and all this without changing the cost in the smaller side, of course. In other words, food manufacturers began to use a non-trivial method of fattening up customers – shrinkflation (from the English shrink – “reduce”).

Now the Ministry of Industry and Trade is ready to consider amendments to the technical regulations “On food safety”, which will prohibit manufacturers of socially significant products from using reduced packaging.

Instead of non-standard volumes (for example, 900 ml or 9 eggs), only standard ones will be allowed – such as 200 g, 500 g, 1 l and others. According to Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Viktor Evtukhov, changes are needed in order to stop misleading consumers:

“The reduction by producers of the mass and quantity of goods without a decrease, or even with an increase in cost, is called inflation. This method, of course, helps manufacturers reduce their costs. However, all this is done through abuse of consumer trust. Many of us discover the “drying out” of familiar products and goods already at home. And among the overwhelming majority, it is traditionally packaged products that are in demand, and not their smaller versions,” he noted.

The transition to standard packaging is not so simple in practice, warns Dmitry Vostrikov, executive director of the Rusprodsoyuz Association. “To meet new requirements, it is necessary to replace or reconfigure production lines, order new and produce already produced or purchased packaging and finished products, as well as agree on new product lines with retail, which will take from 12 to 15 months,” he explains.

Meanwhile, according to Vostrikov, by reducing the weight or volume of a product unit, manufacturers strive to make it more accessible to consumers. “In the current situation of a colossal increase in costs, such a transition could lead to an additional increase in prices,” the expert concludes.

At the same time, according to the International Confederation of Consumer Societies (ConfOP), more than 70% of packaged food products have decreased in volume over the past 7 years.

“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Industry and Trade does not take a decisive enough position on this issue,” says Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies (ConfOP). “After all, introducing changes to the technical regulations of the EAEU, which the department insists on, may take several years, since this is an international treaty and does not need to be coordinated with all member countries of the union.”

According to the expert, there is another, more efficient way to solve the problem. At the level of the government decree that sets the rules for retail trade, it is necessary to oblige sellers to indicate on price tags not only the cost of a unit of goods, but also the price in terms of 1 kg or 1 liter. By the way, EU states and some other countries do this. In this case, a consumer with a price tag can quickly compare the cost of different goods on the shelf and choose the best purchase option for him.

Well, while officials are choosing suitable ways to combat shrink inflation, it is thriving in domestic trade and methods of manipulating packaging are becoming more and more sophisticated.