Submitted 2 months ago by sundray@lemmus.org to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j1kjy7gewo
Factoring in 35 years of inflation. A $0.50 mars bar in 1991 is $1.21 today. The cost of a Mars bar today is at least $1.50 USD (after converting from UK pounds) and that’s being generous.
Companies are greedier than ever and there seems to be no stopping it (meaning because of the oligarchy in the US, Congress will never do a damn thing about it, and certainly the spoiled man-baby’s executive branch will do nothing about it), and no end in sight of it.
Fuck them all.
I would also be surprised if the cost of production, now using cheaper ingredients and far more automation, hadn’t also decreased.
Oh absolutely. Productivity has tripled in many western countries during that time. Wages never kept up with that but prices sure did…
Does infinite growth mean eternal shrinkflation? Will it ever plateau? Or collapse?
I visited a chocolate confection assembly plant. The only things humans do now is random tasks like flip the random bar that for sone reason fell odd obto conveyor or shift the skewed box on the pallet, or open the door for a shipment.
The rest was automatic, from the pipes running chocolate throughout the plant to the final gluing and boxing.
The costs are materials, and the factory operation cost, labour is almost nothing. So to increase profit they really can only cheapen or lesson the materials
Not to mention less cacao
In 1991 those were closer to 30 cents.
I was 12, so I didn’t have 3 cents to rub together, let alone 30. I assumed it was similar to candy bars when I was in high school, which were about $0.50 at the time.
That’s the official inflation numbers, which are lies. It’s an open secret that in the 90s there was a political movement among the owners to artificially lower reported inflation (see: Boskin Commission for example) because it would boost the economy (on paper) while letting them absorb the gains.
Underreporting by 1-2% a year doesn’t seem like much until you do it for several decades. Looking at actual inflation instead of the reported lie, that mars bar is closer to $2 today. Shrinkflation had to happen to keep the bigger con going. Most businesses will, of course, cheat the margins at every instance.
TLDR; shrinkflation is a symptom, not the disease
We’ve had the technology to stop this since 1791. Arguments about maturity could be made that put an industrial version as late as 1917.
That’s still over a century ago.
Even the font weight shrank
Also, recipe blogs are a great source of information on shrinkflation. Going to the store to look for a package size that no longer exists is fun.
Back in the dialup days when brands were first coming online I used to have quite a thing for a Toffee Crisp. When I got a bar that was noticeably smaller than the last, I emailed them expecting a reply about market forces or cost of ingredients, but maybe they’d also send a voucher for a free bar or something.
Instead they tried to gaslight me, telling me they’d always been that size and that I must be imagining it. I was so put out by it that, other than a very occasional multi-pack for picnics, I haven’t bought a single-serve Toffee Crisp, Mars Bar, Snickers etc since.
When shrinkflation became a recognised term I felt so vindicated! I wish I still had that email so that I could shove it in their faces.
I saw a Curly Wurly in a shop the other day, and they’re now a pale imitation of what they were.
Damn those are some grippers
I always had the feeling that they were 56% bigger when I was a kid.
You were just smaller then.
I walked through some forest 2ish years ago, next to a football stadium
I found a snickers wrapper with “olympics atlanta 1996” next to the snickers logo
Aww man, that was 10 years ago
Sorry to make you feel old, but it was in fact 20 years ago!
Remember BJ Novak calling out Cadburys blatant advertising lie about the new eggs were not getting smaller. That you were getting bigger.
Start of CadburyGate segment:
Fulls interview
IMO the size is irrelevant after how they ruined the filling. And I bet the chocolate shell is also not as good as it used to be. They used to be an automatic buy when i saw them in stores because they are so good. In their current form, I don’t understand why people bother getting them at all.
Yep, one of my favourites before, after they changed they were so bad though; somebody working for them offered a store tray full and we just refused.
Ahead of his time on the call out. Now corporations just shrinkflate openly.
Enshittification is the word of the decade. Century?
I’d sign for enshittification being the worst thing that happens this century. Considering there are years 73 ahead of us in the century, it might only be the precursor of what will actually be the word of the century.
I think fascism is worse. I think Russia invading Ukraine is worse. I think the genocide by Israel of the Palestinians is worse. I think wealth inequality is worse. I think the lack of social safety nets in the US, especially universal heatlh case, is worse.
Enshittification is bad, but I really don’t think it’s the worst thing.
Global warming is by far the worst thing but it leads to the same evil root of corporate greed.
Probably something like “Omnicide”, the way things are going.
And using it to describe everything is the enshitification of the word enshitification
Not when literally everything is enshittifiying.
If its the word of the millenium Im very curious where it goes…
I’m curious to see how different the ingredient lists are between the two.
I bet the ingredients are worse now too
It’s a weird thing to think about, but in a ship-of-Theseus sort of way a lot of the products we grew up with don’t really exist anymore. By that I mean, if it’s half the size and made of different ingredients then the Mars Bar as it was introduced has effectively been discontinued. There’s just some other, crappier knock-off being sold under the same name now.
Yep really stretching the bounds of how far name recognition will get them. All of Cristie products, most chocolate bars.
That’s almost the worst part. Not only is the food ultra-processed now, but it’s all engineered to extract every fraction of a penny in margins.
If this goes on, I might as well just inject palm oil straight to my veins.
Soon it’s just ars.
WRONG. It’ll be just the one Mar.
2087: a
I clearly remember they were 68 grams when I was a kid, which always weighed on my mind when I had to choose between a Mars best and the 78 gram Oh Henry
Even the font got skinnier!
The chocolate was thicker too. Easier to peel off and eat separately.
When I was a kid, a pound of coffee was 16 ounces (US). Now it’s down to 12. They do it in small steps, so no one realizes it’s happening until you see something like this.
This explains why I only needed to eat 1 Mars bar to feels satisfied back in the days while I now have to eat 3-4 bars.
Not really. That bar was 62.5g while modern ones are 40g. So to offset shrinkflation you’d have to eat about 1.5 modern bars, not 3-4.
I took that as part of the joke.
I can eat many, but they never completely fill the void inside.
They had a better font back then too.
It had been at least 5 years since I bought myself a Snickers bar, I bought one about 2 months ago and I laughed my ass off at the shrinkflation size than that I remember, on the one hand you got Mars Inc. upping the price $.75c and shrinking it to whatever. On the OTHER hand, you actually got a reasonable portion to prevent over consuming empty calories/sugar.
Lose lose win win. Balance in the force.
Even the design looks better!!! Why!?
I’ve never actually had one. They haven’t sold these in the US in years.
Mars bars are sold in the US under the name Milky Way. Not to be confused with what’s globally known as Milky Way, which is called 3 Musketeers in the US.
um. the us had mars bars and they were nothing like milky ways. they were closer to snickers but with almonds.
Like soccer vs football 🤣
Another rocket situation‽
No mars bars at all?
I buy things in lbs or kgs so not much has changed beyond the price per weight of course.
It‘s sugary garbage, the less the better.
For the same price it is not.
Just like drugs people who want to consume will consume. Even if a smaller portion may be healthier - the price should reflect that. But it’s the opposite. Constantly smaller packages for a higher price per weight and lower quality ingredients/cutting back on the percentage of nuts, cocoa, etc. in a lot of products.
I don’t see how you can possibly defend that for any product?
Addicts can get refined sugar for a fraction of the price.
This thing is plastic-wrapped, but the thing we can’t easily compare is produce. I think it’s likely that fruits and vegetables just don’t have as much nutritional content as before thanks to aggressive agriculture and worsening environments.
so Shrinkflation is normal in most products then?
Food products probably. In clothes or cars, for example, it’s a bit harder to pull off. With clothes, it seems more like skimpflation - some items definitely had thinner-feeling fabric right after COVID, although it got better again. With cars, they just raise the price, so that’s inflation.
If costs go up you have to do one of the three. You’re probably not getting angry phone calls because your Mars bar went down by 1g, but might if it’s more expensive or tastes like shit, so that’s the advantage there.
I wish shrinkflation worked on cars and trucks, they just keep getting bigger and bigger.
This would be the perfect time for him to make “I Hate Mars Bars.”
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m sure your customers have been demanding smaller bars that cost more.
Airfried@piefed.social 2 months ago
“We didn’t only shrink the size, we also lowered the quality of ingredients to maximize profits!”
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The only people who enjoy Mars bars are shareholders
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There’s a large number of people talking glp-1s (ozempic et. al) and they actually are looking for smaller portion sizes, which is driving a huge trend in grocery now of boxing up larger quantities of smaller items.
Of course the industry has used this to their advantage. Instead of just offering a 4-pack of frozen dairy treats at 2 oz each, they can offer an 8-pack at .8 oz each and sell it alongside that one for even more.
AwesomeLowlander@quokk.au 2 months ago
Yes, because shrinkflation wasn’t a thing until Ozempic arrived.
Also, the % of the population taking Ozempic is what, a rounding error?
daychilde@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If people weren’t buying more of them, they wouldn’t’ve changed the size.
What people say they want and what they actually purchase are often different.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 months ago
Companies have been trying to cheap out in manufacturing costd since manufacturing was invented.
Don’t blame the consumer when the candy bar cartel shrinks their shit then lies about it.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Me: doesn’t buy them
Candy: shrinks anyway
Me: “but the internet says that won’t happen!”
nogooduser@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s not a valid conclusion.
The only thing that we can say for sure is that the companies benefit from shrinkflation in some way otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
If sales drop due to the smaller sizes but they still make more profit overall then you can be sure that we’d be getting smaller bars.
brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
You are assuming both options were on the market for consumers to choose from.
These are unilateral decisions.
BillCheddar@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Are you 15? Or do you just lack all common sense and ability to understand the universe around you?
I’m serious. What you’ve written is so far from reality that I feel compelled to make sure you’re OK and not like, IDK, stroking out somewhere.
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Well, their customers have kept on buying their products so clearly they don’t care too much.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
There was a dollarstore knock off mars bar we bought for a while 50¢ each
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
They customers would take bars that cost the same and are imperceptibly smaller. At least, better than a price hike, I’d expect. Then the Karens come out.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Translation:
People don’t by Mars because it’s Gucci.
And if we stayed the same size, it’d be really expensive, because among other things the global climate no longer supports chocolate production.
TBF none of it is a lie. That’s as close as corporate-speak comes to “yup we did that”.