Over 2,500 every day household products have shrunk in size over the past five years but continue to be sold for the same price, as companies profit from ‘shrinkflation’.
According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published on Monday, 2,529 consumer goods were subject to the ‘shrinkflation’ phenomenon, which ahs seen companies reduce the size of products but continue to charge the same.
Whilst chocolate bars that have been subject to this controversy for some time, the ONS found that toilet rolls, coffee and fruit juice were also being sold in smaller packet sizes.
The 2,529 goods getting smaller over the last five years compares to just 614 products that increased in size between 2012 and 2017.
In 2012 an Andrex toilet roll that contained 240 sheets contained just 221 sheets in 2017, despite being sold for the same price. One litre of Tropicana fruit juice, which cost £2.48 in 2012, now contains just 850ml.
“As part of this process [calculating inflation], we look out for pack sizes changing so that we can make sure we’re comparing like with like,” the ONS said.
“When we looked at the data from the last 5 years, we found that lots of the items we recorded had reduced in size or weight – mostly in the “food and drink” category.”