French supermarkets will be required to display signs on goods whose quantities have reduced without a corresponding price drop.
“When products, whether food or not, are ‘shrinkflationed’ – in other words, their quantity is reduced but not their price – “there will be a notice on the shelf for two months,” Olivia Grégoire, Minister for SMEs has confirmed.
The requirement will be implemented from 1 July.
The signs will read: “For this product, the quantity sold has gone from X to Y and its price per kilogram, gram or litre has increased by X% or X Euros,” Grégoire explained.
Economists identify more and more "shrinkflation" practices in the market. Rather than raising prices in challenging times an given that food prices have already increased by some 20% in two years, producers and distributors resort to this strategy to cut costs.
“This is a scam,” French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, said on Friday, pledging to address the issue.
As an example, the Carrefour chain has drastically reduced servings obtained for potatoes and many vegetable products that consumers could buy for a given price.
Grégoire said she would prefer the responsibility to apply to manufacturers rather than distributors, and at a European level, during a “revision of the rules of consumer information on food products in Europe in 2025”.
The French minister plans to use this upcoming European revision to also introduce measures against “cheapflation”, another industry practice that refers to the reduction of ingredients, or replacing ingredients with cheaper or lower quality substitutes, without reducing the price.
