And here's some of Geriatric Joe's favorite snacks.
Posted on 02/12/2024 6:09:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
“I’ve had enough of what they call shrinkflation," Biden said. "It's a rip-off.”
President Joe Biden has a message for snack companies: Knock it off with shrinkflation.
On Sunday, just ahead of the Super Bowl, Biden posted on X (formally known as Twitter), sharing a video aimed at snack companies, saying that they are shrinking the size of their products without also reducing costs to consumers. It’s a practice the president bluntly called a “rip-off.”
“When buying snacks for the big game, you might have noticed one thing,” Biden said. “Sports drink bottles are smaller, a bag of chips has fewer chips, but they’re still charging just as much. And as an ice cream lover, what makes me the most angry is that ice cream cartons have actually shrunk in size but not in price.” He succinctly added, “I’ve had enough of what they call shrinkflation. It's a rip-off.”
The Gas Stove Debacle Is Finally Over While Biden didn’t specifically call out any companies by name, brands that were shown on the snack table beside him took note.
"We appreciate that the President has to deflect attention away from inflation that has lingered during his administration," David Chavern, president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, shared in a statement with Reuters. According to Chavern, his organization is eager to work with the president and his administration on "real solutions that benefit consumers."
However, a December 2023 report published by Pennsylvania’s Sen. Bob Casey, shows the issue to be much deeper than mere deflection. According to the report, General Mills decreased the size of its “Family Size” offering across multiple products without reducing cost, including reducing the size of its Family Size Cocoa Puffs from 19.3 ounces to 18.1 ounces. It then doubled down by increasing the cost for the lighter product in 2023. The report also called out Frito-Lay, which reduced the size of a bag of Doritos from 9.75 ounces to 9.25 ounces. Though the company noted the change was due to the pandemic, it still posted a 9% increased operating profit between 2021 and 2022.
Other household goods appear to be suffering through shrinkflation, including Charmin Ultra Soft Mega rolls of toilet paper, which decreased from 264 double-ply sheets a roll to 244 sheets, while the company’s other offering, Ultra Soft Super Mega rolls, has decreased from 396 sheets to 366. It’s not alone in the toilet paper shrinkage either, with the report noting Cottonelle’s one-ply mega rolls went from 340 to 312 sheets while its two-ply sheets went from 284 to 268.
“There is no denying that shrinkflation is real and that it is having a measurable impact on family budgets,” the report noted, adding, “but there is still much to learn about the tactic and its full effect on American consumers.”
This may not be the last time the President makes an effort to call out brands for practices like this. In early February, Jared Bernstein, the chair of President Biden's Council of Economic Advisers, shared with Reuters, "Our message is a very clear one that the president has and will continue to lean into, which is, if you're a company whose input prices have come down and you're not passing those savings along to the consumer, he will call you out.”
Oh, boy. Another “crackdown!”
More Stalin. Blame the managers of companies, then shoot them or send them off on an arctic vacay.
“Shrinkflation?”
That’s how Dr. Jill Biden described it....
Leftists always attack. Keeps everyone off guard and helps them always win.
Yes! And the media’s incessant reminders of what the thing was formerly called are a contradiction. If it was formerly called that, yet they are required to call it that in every reference....well, they’re idiots.
What do you suggest the government do about it?
Biden doesn’t even know what he’s reading. This issue was brought up by his 24 year old equal opportunity affirmative action, zero life experience staff. This is the third grade thinking coming out of our government. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t so serious.
It doesn’t really help if they have to buy the items more frequently.
Companies should just be honest and raise the danged prices. A price hike is honest; shrinkflation is deception.
If you get shrinkflation, you get more of straight up inflation. Personal sized fruit pies at the Walmart went from 50 cents to 74 cents. Candy bars that cost a nickel when Biden was a kid are now hovering around the $2 mark, up from $1.39. A quarter pound burger, regular fries and a drink was $7 not long ago at most fast food chains. Now they are $11 and up. (Wendy’s Biggie Bag features a tiny burger). EVERYTHING at Dollar Tree went from $1 to $1.25 and Up. The Greeting Cards went from 50 cents to $1. USA grown Apple Juice (Treetop) went from $2.49 to $3.79 (Walmart/Kroger).
Simple basic math is just too complicated for dems.
Price per ounce….. waaaaaahhhhh.
Price per ounce or pound or unit is on about every price label in grocery stores.
When stores list price per steak because people are just to lazy.
Even with every cell phone having a Caculator. Some shoppers still don’t get it.
I quietly snicker in side when my wife asks how much is the sale price when something is 25% off.
Have you ever owned a business?
They’re just BBB Joe! That’s Bidenomics!
That being said, it is flipping insane how much a bag of chips costs these days. It’s becoming a special treat to get some chips these days.
A well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory and diminished faculties who has never worked in business in his entire life is now telling businesses how to do packaging and pricing.
Businesses need to tell the well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory and diminished faculties where to go.
“Shrinkflation” is nothing more than a reflection of inflation.
It appears that people who do not actually do their own shopping have just discovered this. The rest of us have known it for years.
Shrinkflation happened while Carter, CLinton, Obama and Biden’s handlers were in the white house. There is a pattern there.
No kidding. The 1980s called the WH and want their pet gripe back.
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