‘Shrinkflation’ a scam

I AGREE wholeheartedly with

Rosario Brown (“A recipe for civil unrest” – Cape Points, Saturday,

April 7). However, what he failed to mention is the insidious practice of “shrinkflation”, carried out by virtually all suppliers of food and other goods in our supermarkets.

There are numerous examples, but these few will prove my point.

Tomato sauce, which used to come in 750ml bottles, now comes in bottles of 700ml.

A box of tissues, which used to contain 200, now contains 180. A cake of soap, which used to weigh 200g, now weighs 175g.

The list is endless. In all cases the price either remained the same, or were increased.

The other questionable practice is the packaging of items in non- standard units, making price comparison virtually impossible without having to resort to a calculator.

Cheese, for example, which used to come in 1kg packages, is now sold in units of 900g or 800g.

Granted, some retailers do display the unit kilogram or litre rates, but this is usually hidden away in a minute font.

Yet another example is when the “large economy size” is more expensive per kilogram or litre than several smaller containers of the same product of equivalent combined mass or volume.

These are just a few of the ways in which unscrupulous businesses are targeting unsophisticated or unobservant consumers to maximise profits.

We should not merely accept this meekly.

All it needs is for some serious consumer boycotts of the products in question to make suppliers realise the old saying that “you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time” is still true and they ignore consumer anger at their peril.

It just takes someone with the necessary motivation, drive and leadership, to take the lead. We are in dire need of a South African Ralph Nader.