Groceries such as mouthwash, sausages, and butter are all suffering from shrink and skimpflation, research by Which? found.
During the cost-of-living crisis, value has become vital for shoppers, but retailers and manufacturers also face rising costs.
Therefore companies have started to reduce sizes without dropping prices (shrinkflation) and cut the amount of key ingredients used in products (skimpflation).
Ele Clark, Which? Retail Editor, said: “Our research shows that while some popular products are subtly decreasing either in size or quality, the same can’t be said for their prices – which means shoppers are inadvertently paying more for less.”
Examples of shrinkflation include:
- Listerine Fresh Burst mouthwash going from 600ml to 500ml at Asda and Tesco
- PG Tips Tasty Decaf Pyramid tea bags being reduced from 180 bags to 140 at Morrisons, Ocado and Waitrose
- Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter dropping from 225g to 180g
Examples of skimpflation include:
- Waitrose Butter Chicken Curry, which fell from 47% chicken to 41%
- Tesco Finest Sausages going from 97% to 90%
- Tesco Tex Mex Chicken Enchiladas (480g) falling from 27% chicken to 20%
When Which? contacted the supermarkets for reply, only Waitrose responded.
A Waitrose spokesperson said: "Our focus is always on our customers and our new curry recipes performed better than the previous range in bench marking tests.
“We've kept the same prices since this change and we continue to use industry leading higher welfare chicken from British farms across our entire ready meals range."
A spokesman for Listerine maker Kenvue acknowledged the importance of affordability but said high costs for raw materials and production caused a change in the recommended retail price.
Lurpark maker Arla claimed that the prices of its products have reduced in proportion to the pack sizes, but like Kenvue it noted that it is the individual retailers which dictate the prices shoppers pay.
PG Tips manufacturer Lipton Teas said: "The average price of a PG Tips decaf tea bag fell 10% between January 2021 and January 2022, according to Nielsen national pricing data. Pricing is at the absolute discretion of the retailers of course and there may well be promotional instore activity affecting Which?’s research.”