The system should allow price changes, but only honest ones.
Should we have sets of fixed package weights and volumes for food and beverages? VAT penalties for odd form factors? Or something else?
Set standard sizes and only allow sales in those size on penalty of prosecution.
For an example from the uk, until a few years ago bread could only be sold in 400g or multiples thereof.
You couldn't sell most kinds of bread except in standard sizes, so shrinkflation couldn't occur.
There were some exceptions obviously and you could have bigger multiples (like the mythical 1600g loaf)
https://www.fob.uk.com/about-the-bread-industry/how-bread-is...
The standard approaches on how do this date back centuries.
Milk gets sold in standard pints (err... 568ml), beer in pints, flour in 1kg bags, etc.
I actually think these restrictions are a good thing, with permitted exceptions possible for some specific things
Maybe it matters to me that I want to be able to buy $5 worth of dishwasher detergent, whether that's enough for 12 loads of dishes or later is only enough for 9 loads, as long as that's transparently stated, I don't see the issue.
In some cases (like chips and sugared drinks), shrinkflation might be a net benefit to consumers overall.
I suppose truly deceptive versions of this are possible, but for the most part even if you don’t pay attention to the exact weight or volume, you can see what you are getting. A chocolate bar, bag of fruit, etc. It’s right in front of you, and in many cases you pick it up when you buy it. I don’t even know if a chocolate bar from this or that company are the same size normally anyway. Boxes of cereal come in all sizes at the best of times, so if you really care about the weight you're getting you have to check it carefully anyway.
There are already laws mandating that weights be displayed in packaging. As a consumer I just accept the fact things are more expensive, for the company selling me stuff just as much as for myself. It’s up to us as adults to make sure we’re making purchasing decisions that are appropriate for our situation.
There is some “innovation” in packaging that addresses consumer choice - for example with tuna a smaller portion in a pouch is available for you to take for lunch.
I suppose that’s one of the ways poor people stay poor - getting pigeonholed into making the best worst choice for many products drains what resources they have.
I would think that means that if the number of washing tablets went from 12 to 9, then packaging would display in prominent letters "Same price, now 9 tablets instead of 12"
Similarly for unit weights:
Chocolate biscuits, "same 12 biscuits, now 20g instead of 25g. Pack size reduced from 300g to 240g"
That would be transparency from my perspective.
Difficult. hmmm.
I guess it would need to be a standard wording only. A specific sentence with 'fill in the blanks' only for the changed items.
"Now __ tablets instead of __"
It’s a required part of a price label in grocery stores.
I suspect this exists elsewhere too. It works fine enough. I don’t see a need for anything further. It’s really simple and anyone who needs simpler probably won’t benefit from simpler anyways.
If hot dog companies sell 10 hot dogs and bun companies sell 8 buns, and Coke sells 10 packs, but Pepsi sells 12 packs, I don't think that's nice for consumers, but I don't think government intervention is the right way to fix it.
And it's not the bar code that does the psychological effect on the customer. It's the combination of general appearance, and purchasing habits.
Maybe require cost per unit to be displayed under the price itself and let the "busy crowd" do the math if they care enough?
Though supermarkets seem to always engineer a way to have the "main" product be sold by weight and the "main alternative" to be by unit (e.g. prepacked), so you can't directly compare.
Sometimes the units are screwed up, and it shows “$3.49, $3.49/ea” for something that should be in ounces, but that’s rare and is clearly a data problem.
I assume this because otherwise grocery stores would probably love to have a lower “price” as the foremost number.
Shrinkflation is annoying - I'm sure many would prefer to pay more for the same product, but ultimately if you can afford it, you can just buy multiple packs to get the quantity you need.
That's not fair to the restaurant though because their overheard includes order taking, payment, the space my wife and I took up, cleaning up after us, the free chips and salsa, etc. So maybe the restaurant wishes I got the 70% burrito but I paid 85% of the cost.
There was a great soul food restaurant in my home town which sold biologically appropriate portions for prices not much less than you usually pay for oversized entrees. I think one reason they didn't last was that people perceived it as a poor value.
Sure you can go to Costco if you pay the membership, there is one nearby and don't mind having much less choice, but it's still aggravating.
Large packs also drive food waste, so it would be nice if the small pack premiums weren't so punitive rather then just having bigger packs anyway.
Requiring prominent notices of size changes would fix this problem without the government to dictate what size formats are allowed.
I'm sure it would be instantly worked around because shrinkflators are already busily playing sneaky tricks. Probably they'd just slap "great new taste" on it every year and pretend it's a new product.
Package sizes were regulated in the EU starting in the 70s, presumably for this reason, but they've been deregulated in the last decade (other than alcohol).
Walmart pretty much requires this anyway.
Look around on how they caused the price of pickles down to almost nothing and put companies in bankruptcy, this had to be at least 20 years ago now so Google kinda sucks at finding information on it.