Me paying my bananas 50c per unit when they're different sizes 🫨
this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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Ah yes, Mars and Twix & co. "It's for your health"
Great time to be label manufacturer
"This product used to be bigger for the same price."
Dunce hat of the supermarket. Good.
We have unit price labeling here in Oregon, but they use different measurements for the same type of is products.
I always look at the price/kg. Makes no difference what size the packaging is, that price will always tell which one is the cheapest.
I do that all the time too, is especially good when I'm shopping for snacks like biscuits, of course I have to factor in calories but that part isn't going well
Package price can still matter depending on how much you need of a product. Buying 10kg of rice when you need 500g is going to be more expensive than buying a smaller bag. Even if the price/kg is higher.
Me too, but there is one UK retailer (Co-operative) that makes it hard for you. They will have, say, a punnet of strawberries with 200g strawberries in it for £3.50 and another one with 300g for £4.50. The labels will say "unit price: £3.50/unit" or "£4.50/unit". (No, really?) So you have to do your own maths. Luckily other markets are sensible enough to actually provide price per weight. And in Tesco, when a given product is cheaper for clubcard holders, it will even give price per weight twice, for both normal price and clubcard price.
Btw. I don't work for Tesco. I just needed to vent about Co-op being dicks; Tesco just serves as a good counter example of how this should be done, in case any Co-op executive is reading this.
You don't necessarily always check for something you're used to buying, so the shrinking may go unnoticed for a while.
The US needs nationally mandated unit price labeling. We’ve had it in NY for as long as I can remember.
You’d be shocked at how often the middle size is the best deal. It’s almost always the case with cereal. The large box ends up more expensive than the medium per ounce, but people assume it’s the better deal because it’s a bigger package.
I wish the US would just start displaying the actual price of the item including tax. Not all that deceptive crap.
Bigger cornflake per feedom-eagle.
We'll do anything before using metric.
Unit price labeling is mandatory in France too. This is the only price I'm looking at when shopping.
ca coute la peau du cul
I’m sorry. The article is clearly about France, but my comment was America-centric. I edited my comment for clarity.
I’m glad to hear you have unit pricing available in France. I can’t imagine the time people must spend doing the math for comparison shopping in regions without it.
Do you think the shrinkflation stickers will make a difference in educating the average consumer, or be more effective as a shaming tool for manufacturers?
They’re still jerks about it in stores. To keep you from easily comparing products they’ll offer the unit price per oz for one box, then give you the unit price per lb for the other. So they make you do the math, and I’m sure plenty of people just skip that and buy the larger size.
They do this here in the UK too but because we use the metric system now you just add or take away a zero. It registers in your awareness but you don't need to go away and install an app on your phone in order to convert it.
The challenge in comparison is more due to different sized packages than unit of measurement. If one brand makes packages in 8, 11.5, and 14.2 ounces, and a competitor makes 6, 9.5, and 12.7 ounce packages, it would make most break out a calculator to compare them when exclusively labeled by package price.
Costco do this too, at least in my area in California. They price some canned drinks per fluid ounce, and others per can. Really annoying.
I used to see Walmart do it too, but I think they've gotten better.
That’s against regulations if you live in a unit price mandated state. You can report misuse of unit price labeling to your State Director.
According to NIST SP 1181, under Consistency of Units and Measure:
The declaration of the unit price of a particular category of product in all package sizes offered for sale in a retail establishment shall be uniformly and consistently expressed in the same unit of measure. The same unit of measure should be used whether a product category is sold in a fixed weight pre-pack, loose from bulk, or in a random weight pack.
Looks like I’ve got some reporting to do.
I've been thinking of a solution for this. What if products were required to be sold in standard increments. No 11.2 floz, either 6 floz or 12 floz. No 960 grams, only increments of 250 grams up to 1 kg, then increments of 1 kg. It would make product comparison much easier and make it obvious when shrinkflation is happening.
This is a solved problem, in other areas of the world.
I would avoid 250g, that just means you have to multiply and divide by 4, which is more of a pain than multiples of 10.
In Australia, all food and grocery products (other than fresh produce by unit, like 1 avocado), must be labelled by weight, volume, or other suitable metric (number of toilet paper sheets, for example) by a suitable multiple of 10.
Spices, x$/10g, vegetables x$/kg, other stuff per 100/g. Whatever results in a reasonable $ number.
Even if it's different it's hilariously easy to compare.
This can of tomatoes $0.70/100g, is cheaper than $8/kg fresh tomatoes, easy peasy because you just move the decimal.
It really is nice, sorry to rub salt in the wound 😅
It's mandatory to display the price per kg or L in France, which makes comparing the value much easier.
It actually is here in the US, too. At least in my state. It would still be helpful for monitoring for inflation as a consumer if sizes were fixed so that the actual price changes when the price per unit changes. For me it's a lot easier to recognize that something went from $4.99/kg to $5.99/kg when the item is fixed at 1 kg than it is to recognize when the item went from 830 g to 691 g but remained $4.14.
This type of mandate exists in specific industries. I'm really not sure why it doesn't exist in other.
I wish you were the one writing the laws, this would be awesome.
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