16 Popular Groceries That Have Been Hit By Shrinkflation

If you tink that some of your favorite packaged foods have gotten smaller recently, you are not imagining things. You might be experiencing shrinkflation, where brands shrink product size while keeping prices static to save money. The shrinkflation problem arises whenever inflation is high.

About half of consumers are aware of or worried about it. The percentage might be higher if businesses didn't take creative measures to hide these changes. While some brands shrink their product packaging, creating a visible change, others take a more deceptive route. This includes changing ingredients, flashy redesigns, and finding other ways to hide the truth: providing less food for the same price.

Some companies justify their actions. A few openly discuss the pressure of rising costs, but others blame reformulation or even climate change. With businesses feeling the pinch of inflation, we believe it's unlikely that portions or packages will grow. However, eagle-eyed shoppers may be able to avoid some of the most common examples, even if prices don't come back down.

Read more: 23 Whole Foods Baked Goods, Ranked

DiGiorno Pizza

One of the more egregious examples of shrinkflation we found involved DiGiorno Pizza. Did DiGiorno make its pizzas smaller? There is plenty of controversy around this question. Since the brand markets itself as a homemade replacement for pizza delivery, and a typical box of DiGiorno is not as large as take-out pizza, sizing changes impact the cost-effectiveness of eating DiGiorno instead.

The size complaint first appeared on Reddit, where users said the box was smaller. They also claimed the pizza inside had shrunk or changed shape. Many consumers also said the price had gone up. Each reported varying degrees of size and cost, depending on the type of DiGiorno.

DiGiorno does not appear to have responded publicly to this accusation. The company did, however, recently release a new line of pizza called Classic Crust, featuring, you guessed it, a thinner crust. With competitive pricing for a much larger pie from delivery pizza chains like Little Caesars and Domino's, you may want to call in your next pizza order.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Hershey's found a simple way to cut costs by reducing the size of one of the most popular candies in America, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The two-pack has shrunk from 1.6 ounces down to 1.5. While some articles made this seem like a recent change, it was first reported in 2011. It's hard to notice a few ounces gone while you're gobbling down that chocolate and peanut butter goodness.

Since the 1.5-ounce candy is still available, we think it could be worse. It's also true that Reese's is available in many sizes, including Minis, Miniature Cups, Thins, Snack Size, the classic Peanut Butter Cups, Big Cups, and Thank You Cups.

With the recent launch of its Big Cup with Caramel Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, coming in at 1.4 ounces for just one cup, we are happy to report Hershey's has not been hit by shrinkflation again but we remain vigilant.

Tillamook Ice Cream

Tillamook is one of the few companies that openly admits on its website that it downsized its ice cream packaging while keeping the same price. Package size dropped from 56 to 48 ounces. Quite a hit! Is it still worth the price?

We love anything from Tillamook Creamery. It pleased us that the brand was upfront with consumers about the new ice cream sizes. To keep producing a high-quality product, Tillamook had to make a choice, and dropping the package size seemed a more sensible option than raising the price.

Tillamook further states that its profits are either put back into its farmers, who own their farms, or the business. Tillamook also supports its community and sustainable agricultural practices.

We like Tillamook's approach. If you love their ice cream, we recommend you continue to purchase it. Be on the lookout for their improved Cookies and Cream and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavors, featuring even more cookies and dough.

General Mills Family Size Cereal Boxes

Cereals are often a target of shrinkflation. General Mills downsized its Family Size cereal boxes for brands such as Cocoa Puffs and Cheerios. Cocoa Puffs now come in at 18.1 ounces, instead of 19.3, one less bowl per box.

But even worse, the company changed the box shape of cereal lines like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Juggling sizing standards is a popular tactic to hide smaller-sized portions. The cereal only dropped from 19.3 to 18.8 ounces, but its new Family Size is priced the same as what was formerly called Large Size, except with less cereal.

When asked about shrinkflation, Kelsey Roemhildt, a General Mills spokesperson said, "General Mills has been working to create consistency and standardization across our cereal products, making it easier for shoppers to distinguish between sizes on the shelf." She also said this helps with transportation efficiency, reducing fuel usage, which is good for sustainability.

It still sounds like GM is trying to save money with a trend that has caught on with other cereal brands too. Post reduced its Family Size Cocoa Pebbles by an ounce. Quaker Life shrunk their boxed cereal down to 22.3 ounces from 24.8 and switched the size from Giant to Family.

Oreo Cookies

Who doesn't love Oreo cookies? Their cream filling is delicious, but has Oreo cheated you out of it? One consumer says yes. Shane Ransonet complained to the Wall Street Journal that he and his wife thought the standard Oreo cookies had less cream filling. Next, they tried a package of the Double Stuf variety and claimed they looked like regular Oreos.

Dirk Van de Put, CEO of Mondelez, which owns the Oreo brand, claims the company would never take a risk like that. He points out that manufacturing irregularities between different facilities may be the cause. The shape or depth of the cream filling on the cookie base could vary on different machinery, looking like less. We reviewed the photos but it proved difficult to discern if the cream filling had been reduced.

Other claims must be carefully scrutinized. One user posted images of two different sizes of Double Stuf Oreo packages, claiming one shrunk. It turns out that Double Stuf is available in a variety of package sizes, including the two pictured. So far, we find the Oreo shrinkage claims unsubstantiated.

Doritos

Frito-Lay also came clean about reducing the bag size of a snack favorite, in this case, Doritos. It openly admits it made the changes thanks to inflation caused by the pandemic. A spokesperson for the company told Quartz.com, "We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips."

Bag size has dropped from 9.75 ounces to 9.25 ounces, or five fewer chips per bag. That doesn't sound too bad unless you're down at the bottom of the bag.

Snack bag size changes affect more than just Doritos. Sizes dropped by half an ounce for Lay's Potato Chips (including different varieties), Ruffles, and Tostitos.

While we wish there were a more formal response, we know that Frito Lay did experience challenges due to the pandemic. From 2020 to 2022, the brand dealt with labor shortages that created product shortages, likely causing the change.

Betty Crocker Cake Mix

Betty Crocker, the classic brand for homemade cakes, decreased the size of its Super Moist cake mix from 16.25 ounces to 14.25. The sneaky part? It didn't change the recipe measurements for the wet ingredients. That's a loss of 60 grams of cake mix, which impacts the outcome of your cake.

Malina Lee, of Sweet Grace Bakery in San Antonio, uncovered the problem. After finding one of the original boxes, Lee decided to have a bake-off to see how the mixes compared. In comparing cakes, she noticed a difference in both texture and mouthfeel between the two. The original mix yielded a taller cake, while the new cake had more air holes in it and left an unpleasant filmy feeling in her mouth. Lee preferred the flavor of the original mix.

When asked by Business Insider, Betty Crocker openly reported the changes to its Super Moist cake mix line. It cited rising costs and a desire to keep pricing levels. Even more interesting? Currently, we can only find Super Moist brand cake mixes sized 13.25 ounces on the company's website, except for the White Cake Mix at 14.25.

Skippy Peanut Butter

Back in 2008, Skippy Peanut Butter reduced its jar size from 18 ounces to 16.3 ounces, even though the jar looks exactly the same. That's three whole tablespoons of nutty goodness now missing. So, how did Skippy manage it?

Once again, the secret boils down to the redesign. When you turn the jar over, you'll notice an indent in the bottom that didn't exist on the original jar.

At that time, Skippy's parent company, Unilever, blamed inflation, citing rising costs of oil, transportation, manufacturing, and commodities in general. A spokesperson also mentioned product reformulation, so we thought it worthwhile to investigate. We could not find evidence of any reported reformulation on Skippy's website or through a web search.

That said, we can't promise you won't see future shrinkflation from this brand. We will warn you that Skippy's Natural Creamy Peanut Butter line, while containing less processed ingredients, sells in a 15-ounce jar.

Canned Tuna Fish

Shrinkflation is nothing new for this favorite lunch food. Tuna fish got its first size downgrade way back in 1999 when the popular StarKist brand shrunk cans down from 6.5 ounces to 6 ⅛ ounces. Today, its classic Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water comes in a 5-ounce can, commonly sold at grocery stores. All the major tuna brands use this size can, including Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee. This is still more fish for your money than their packets, which only contain 2.5 ounces of tuna.

However, when we dug a little deeper into tuna packaging and pricing, we discovered that in 2015, Chicken of the Sea, StarKist, and Bumble Bee were accused of setting up a corporate price-fixing scheme, thereby eliminating competitive pricing. This scheme stayed in play from 2010 to 2016. Bumble Bee and StarKist pled guilty, while Chicken of the Sea settled. As a result, executives lost their jobs and fines were levied but tuna prices did not come down.

Finally, some consumers claim that tuna companies pump up the volume of water in tuna cans, unofficially called waterflation. It seems easy for companies to get away with this, so keep an eye on how many grams of protein that can contains the next time you buy tuna.

Cadbury Chocolates

Famous as the British alternative to Hershey, Cadbury also cleverly shrunk the size of its milk chocolate candy by redesigning it. Back in 2013, Cadbury changed the shape of its bars by rounding off the edges. There was immediate backlash since the bars were four grams smaller in size. But Cadbury stood by its decision, claiming that rounded chocolates taste better because they melt in the mouth differently.

The company reappeared in shrinkflation news in 2016, when it changed the distance between peaks in its Toblerone candy bar. This reduced the size of the chocolate bar by 50 grams while keeping prices steady. However, the company changed it back to its previous size two years later, either due to reduced costs of manufacturing, consumer backlash, or both.

Today, Cadbury is at it again with another change: shrinking the size of its multipack chocolate bars while individual bars will remain the same. Cadbury executives claim that the change is part of an effort to fight obesity, rather than inflation. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us, especially since prices remain the same. However, with this excuse, the company has no good reason to return bars to their former size.

Chobani Flips

This brand was already well-known for its small cup size. Compared to other brands like Danon or Yoplait, Chobani's regular yogurt cups weigh only 5.3 ounces.

Chobani Flips are now a mere 4.5 ounces, down from 6 ounces when first introduced. The Flips line contains additional ingredients that you can add to the yogurt, such as nuts or chocolate chips, reducing the amount of yogurt even more. Compare that to other brands with add-ins, such as Noosa at 5.8 ounces or YoCrunch at 6.

Chobani Flips offer good variety. Not all of it is healthy, either, but you'd probably have a difficult time finding Peanut Butter Dream or Red Velvet Cupcake at your local supermarket. You might be better off sticking with the larger-sized YoCrunch for decadent add-ins.

That said, Chobani did receive a runner-up nod in our review of the best Greek yogurt brands. Maybe a little less yogurt and a little more taste is just the thing.

Folgers Coffee

Before reviewing the shrinkflation allegations, we must address Folger Coffee's multiple lawsuits for false advertising, which claims that the cans do not produce the number of cups cited on the label. Folger's response? The label reads "up to" the number of cups, so a can may come up a few cups shy.

In the most recent lawsuit, the plaintiff alleged that of all the Folgers varieties (42 in total), most only produced 70% of the label's claim — quite a reduction. However, given its prior victories, Folgers and its parent company seem unworried.

Did the can itself shrink? The popular canned coffee brand dropped from 51 ounces to 43.5 recently. Folgers claims there's a good reason for this: it uses lightweight beans. However, we could not find any information about new coffee beans on its website.

The company also claims that you can still get 400 cups — or rather, up to 400 cups from it. Just be sure to use a small mug.

Keebler's Cookies

Keebler's dropped the size of its packaging for Keebler's Chips Deluxe with M&M Cookies. The Standard Size is now 9.75 ounces, down from 11.3 ounces, and the Family Size dropped 15% and is now 14.6 ounces from over 17. That's a loss of two to three cookies per bag for the same price.

In 2014, the company redesigned its packaging of Chips Deluxe. The new package retained the size of 13.3 ounces. However, a short time later, the new package was reduced to only 11.6 ounces. Was this a deliberate bait and switch? We don't know the time between the two package releases, but we do know that the smaller bag still sported the "New Look" graphic.

In 2020, Keebler also changed the packaging to retain freshness. Some consumers disagreed, claiming the cookies went stale faster and the quality of the cookies changed for the worse too. The company has been experimenting with new flavors and formulas since its 2019 purchase by the Ferrara Candy Company, so it may have reformulated its cookies. We recommend keeping an eye on Keebler cookie size and flavor going forward.

Shake 'N Bake

This product didn't exactly downsize. Instead, the company removed the plastic shaker bags in 2022 to be more sustainable. The brand, owned by The Kraft Heinz Company, has never sold this product without bags. However, it dived right in, making the change across all its lines and encouraging consumers to use their own containers. This move eliminates a whopping 900,000 pounds of plastic waste.

Reducing that much plastic is a good thing, but we wondered how consumers would react to the missing bags. Many are not pleased and accuse the company of shrinkflation. One customer even claimed she resorted to Ziploc plastic bags, which isn't saving any plastic.

Other consumers have dropped the product altogether, opting to create their own custom seasonings blend. Will this make Shake 'N Bake obsolete? Time will tell but we wouldn't be surprised if the brand does a bit more work reinventing itself.

Wishbone House Italian Salad Dressing

Wishbone Salad Dressings are a long-time favorite for finishing a homemade salad. However, some consumers have accused the brand of watering down its House Italian Salad Dressing. The 2022 reformulated recipe includes less oil and garlic, more water, and a lot more salt — a 30% increase!

How did fans react? Some took to social media to complain. We headed over to the Wishbone website to check out reactions and they were not good: 31 of the 32 one-star reactions (compared to 44 five-star) voiced dissatisfaction with the new recipe.

There are other concerns too. A single serving of the new formula has 20 more calories, two more grams of fat, including 0.5g of saturated fat, and 90 more milligrams of salt. Wishbone responded to the complaints by saying that new recipes go through a great deal of taste tasting, which is subjective. People watching their sodium levels may want to avoid this product.

We did not find any information on why they changed the recipe. Given the timing, we suspect it could be shrinkflation.

Wheat Thins And Other Popular Crackers

The hits on snack foods keep coming, with several popular cracker brands shrinking in size. First up: Wheat Thins. The Family Size box for this popular snack item was reduced from 16 ounces down to 14, resulting in a loss of about 28 crackers. That deep cut doesn't even account for broken crackers.

Another cracker brand following this route is Breton. Its box size went from 8.8 ounces down to 7 for Original and Sesame flavors, and 7.3 for its Multigrain Cracker. We did a little math and estimate that equals a loss of roughly 9 or 10 crackers per package.

Finally, Ritz Crackers have been downsized a few times. Its products started out in a one-pound box. It downsized to 15.1 ounces, then 13.7 ounces by 2013. The good news is that so far, box sizes have not changed but as we see, shrinkflation can happen at any time. Savvy shoppers should keep their eyes open for changes like this.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.