To Fight ‘Shrinkflation,’ France Will Force Retailers to Warn Shoppers
Summary
For months, the shelves of Carrefour, France’s biggest supermarket chain, have been dotted with bright orange signs placed in front of Pepsi bottles, Lays potato chips and a variety of other foods whose packages are suspiciously smaller than they used to be. “This product has seen its volume decrease and the price charged by our supplier increase.” On Friday, the French government took steps to require every food retailer in the country to follow suit. “We are putting an end to it.” The government is also encouraging shoppers to act as informers, urging those “who have doubts about the price per unit of measurement displayed on the shelves” to flag it to authorities via France’s consumer reporting app. The signs will appear near a variety of goods made by food companies, as well as for the supermarket’s private-label brands, from snacks and soda to bags of rice and laundry detergent. Many global consumer goods companies have raised prices by double-digit percentages in the past year, attributing the increases to higher costs of ingredients and labor.