- The public have got used to shrinking product sizes
- But skimping on services could be far harder for the public to overlook
It’s nearly Easter, which means a bout of speculation about whether Creme Eggs really are smaller this year. The grumbling isn’t unwarranted: it turns out that the chocolate eggs have had a long pedigree of 'shrinkflation' and ‘skimpflation’ over the years. Since 2015, they have been sold in multipacks of five instead of six, while the chocolate shells have been made of something that a spokesperson once disconcertingly described as “similar, but not exactly Dairy Milk”.
We could be set for another round of Easter shrinkflation this year. The cocoa price has soared, reaching a record high earlier this month. This will do nothing to ease pressure on chocolate prices, and Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, thinks that “higher prices and shrinkflation will be the result eventually”. According to Which? Twix, Smarties, Mars and Terry’s Chocolate Orange Easter eggs have all shrunk in size this year – without a corresponding reduction in price.