BRITISH households have been feeling the consequences of rising inflation for months, but some of the effects are harder to spot than others. A closer look at some of the food in your cupboards may reveal the truth though. Is that packet of biscuits still as big as it used to be? Or has it been victim of “shrinkflation”?
The word shrinkflation essentially describes the process by which a manufacturer keeps the price of a product the same but reduces its size. The effect was famously seen last year when the makers of Toblerone made the spaces between the peaks of the chocolate bigger to accommodate the rising cost of the ingredients, but it has been seen in other products too, including teabags and cereal. The price stays the same, but everything else shrinks.
The Office for National Statistics says it has seen the effects of shrinkflation 2,529 times in the last five years, but has ruled out a Brexit effect.
However, the idea that Brexit is not contributing to shrinkflation is hard to sustain. The ONS says its analysis does not show a noticeable change following the EU referendum, but it is clear the falling value of the pound in the last year is adding to the problems for manufacturers caused by the rising price of some commodities.
Brexit, we were told, was a great economic opportunity. Now, it seems, it is putting the squeeze on all of us.
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