It’s sof t, strong... and not quite as long!

Andrex cuts size of rolls yet again

ANDREX has cut the size of its toilet rolls for the second time in a year in the latest example of ‘shrinkflation’.

Last year a typical roll of the big-brand toilet paper – promoted as ‘soft, strong and very, very long’ – had 240 sheets.

That was cut to 221 sheets and now it has been reduced again to 200.

It is one of a growing list of products that have become smaller in the last few years. Sometimes the move is accompanied by a small price cut but often it is kept the same or may even go up.

Richard Headland, editor of the consumer magazine Which?, said: ‘Shrinking products can be a sneaky way of increasing prices.

‘We want manufacturers and supermarkets to be up front about shrinking products so consumers aren’t misled.’

The Andrex reduction means multipacks of 16 are missing the equivalent of two full rolls of tissue.

Packs now cost less at £7.50 but that is a saving of just 35p, according to Channel 4’s show Supershoppers.

Kimberly-Clark, which produces Andrex toilet paper, boasts on the packs that the new rolls have ‘thicker sheets’.

Other products recently affected by ‘shrinkflation’ include Peperami meat sticks, Doritos tortilla chips, and Minstrels and M&M’s chocolates.

They are all now sold in smaller sizes but at the same price as before.

For example, sharing bags of Doritos have been reduced from 200g to 180g but remain on sale at the same average price of £1.99. And Mars has cut the size of a large bag of Galaxy Minstrels from 232g to 210g while the price stayed at £2.50.

A spokesman for Kimberly-Clark said ‘reducing the roll by a very small number of sheets’ funded new investment.