The Reality of “Shrinkflation”

Despite the rising concerns of Canadian consumers, shrinkflation is a much more complex issue than one may think. 

Shrinkflation is a term to describe the inflation of price for a product and the decrease of amount you really get.  

However, quantity is not the only issue that concerns locals. 

Iryna Polushko, a mother from Ukraine, said she noticed a difference between the quality of products from Canada compared to … Ukraine.  

“When I came to Canada, I saw the prices were very high,” said Polushko. “The quality of the product is a little bit different. I cannot compare it because we have other fruits and vegetables with a different taste. But the prices for the products here is still way too high.” 

Ken White of Consumers Council of Canada said the council had released a report on shrinkflation. He said while collecting data for the report, they had discovered shrinkflation was mainly caused by misleading packaging sizes.  

“The stores that have been involved with (our report) have often done (shrinkflation) by making packaging changes,” said White. “So, it’s not clear that any time soon that they’re going to change their packaging format.” 

White said the Agricultural Committee of Parliament recommended work be done to implement a national standard for unit pricing.  

According to Canada.ca, “per unit pricing, or standard unit pricing, is the calculation of the price of a product using a set unit of measurement. Per unit pricing can help you compare prices more easily and can provide you with a straightforward way of finding the lowest price for a particular type of product.” 

Therefore, rather than only seeing the price of how much product you are getting, per unit pricing shows the cost of product per set amount. 

However, it would be a complicated process to make per unit pricing mandatory for the entire country. 

“You need to understand that, for this to happen, it’s a combined responsibility of the provinces and federal government because of the nature of Canada’s constitutional arrangements,” said White. “It’s not like one level of government can make it happen, they have to actually co-operate, with the exception of the fact that provinces could do it province by province.” 

White said a good way to combat shrinkflation is by manually calculating per unit price for each    product.  

To learn more about the government’s goals regarding shrinkflation, click here.