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Comment by f6v | Hacker News Reader

Yeah but what’s the alternative? Things are expensive, you’ve got to eat. I have to purchase things even if it’s affected by shrinkflation.

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Well, it's possible to increase prices without using these tactics to make it seem like it's not increasing.

A lot of the time shrinkflation makes me seriously look at buying ingredients directly. I can afford to pay extra but, like for example Field Roast recently reduced the size of their sausages from 4oz to 3.2oz each, which is like 300 vs 240 calories, which is enough that I like... can't eat a sausage anymore, it's not enough food. The whole point of having prepackaged food like that is that it's easy to portion out, once they reduce the size sufficiently that a single portion is no longer a portion it makes more sense to buy something else I will portion myself.

The whole purpose of shrinkflation is to prevent yourself from getting into a game of prisoners dilemma with your competitors. You can cut the product size, and therefore costs, and maintain a "competitive price".

There are lots of alternatives to PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestle.

Well, you just mentioned the companies that own about 90% of what is in Walmart. So, I wouldn't say, "lots".

The good news is that the remaining 10% is pretty well distributed across the things you actually need. If you're completely addicted to Pepsi co brand empty calories you're out of luck but if you're willing to eat actual food there are still plenty of options.

Walmart doesn't even exist in France, so I'm not sure how that's relevant.

You can replace "Walmart" with most large supermarket brands in the western world. Nestlé and Unilever are both European companies and have an even stronger presence in France than in the USA.

My point is stop eating highly processed garbage and start eating whole foods from local sources.

Eating locally is more carbon intensive and only results in worse food. Long distance shipping doesn't matter at all compared to the last mile, and small producers are less productive than large ones. (Also, small business owners are usually evil, especially if they're farmers, who often end up using slave labor because they can't afford an HR department.)

Luckily, most places that claim to serve local food are just lying.

I’m pretty sure my meat, vegetables, dairy, grains all have a smaller package now and cost more. Processed vs whole foods misses the issue.

These are companies that dominate markets like pet food, infant formula, and personal hygiene products. (Did you forget that you can't make laundry detergent or toothpaste from whole foods?) They are hard to avoid.

And anyway, remarks that are flip about changing consumer behaviors are beyond useless, for ignoring all of the complexity and difficulty in pulling it off. Or are you really giving advice to this educated and privileged audience that doesn't need to hear it because they already know and can?

To Pepsi, yeah, there are. And you can simply not buy anything from them either.

To the other ones, well, just try replacing them.

> Yeah but what’s the alternative?

Buy a different brand?

Eat something else?

I think shinkflation affects my groceries across the board (Denmark). I don’t even buy soda.

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