The ‘shrinkflation’ capitalist con

Jimmy Haddow

Mondelez International – originally Kraft/Heinz Foods – is an American multinational confectionery, food, beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of nearly $39 billion and is 108th out of the top 500 companies, and operates in approximately 160 countries.

Its portfolio includes several billion-dollar brands, among them Milka, Côte d’Or, Toblerone, Cadbury, Green & Black’s, Freia and Marabou etc.

In May 2026 in a landmark German case a court found that Mondelez, the manufacturer of Milka’s classic Alpine Milk bar in Germany, cheated consumers and broke competition law. Cutting back on the amount of chocolate while having the same kind of wrapper meant that customers were being misled, a Bremen regional court ruled. The Court ruled that the company was deceiving consumers by reducing the weight of the “Alpenmilch” bar from 100g to 90g, while the price rose from €1.49 (£1.30) to €1.99 (£1.70) at the beginning of 2025.

If you go into any supermarket, there are hundreds of everyday foods and commodities that indicate the packaging looks slightly smaller, but the price seems dearer than the week before. This practice by major companies of reducing size, but either keeping the same price or increasing price, is called “shrinkflation” and means the working class pays more for profit to the big companies, with less to the consumer.

In 2010 Kraft, before it became Mondelez, reduced its 200 g Toblerone bar to 170 g and again in 2016, reduced the size to 150 g, while the 400 g bar was reduced to 360 g. This was done by enlarging the gap between the chocolate triangles. However, “shrinkflation” makes the true cost different: a large 400g bar in 2015 was scaled down to 360g for the same price in 2016, and in 2026 the current 340g–360g bars now retail for £5.50 to £7.00.

In 2022, Procter & Gamble reduced the number of double-ply sheets per roll of toilet paper from 264 to 244 sheets in the 18-count mega package. This amounts to approximately a roll and a half of a difference. In 2022, Unilever reduced the size of Dove soap bars from 100 g to 90 g, with most retailers either maintaining the same price or increasing prices; it was not too long when other soap manufacturers followed the practice. When the reduction took place the price stayed the same and then rose with inflation.

In 2016, Terry’s Chocolate Orange, (TCO), was reduced from 175g to 157g by changing the moulded shape of each segment to leave an air gap between each piece. The TCO on shop shelves on Christmas 2025 weighs 12g less than December 2024. That’s a decrease in size of 8% – not as big a cut as when the product lost 10% of its mass in 2016, but a further whittling away of a favourite Christmas treat.

Prices have been going up too, although it’s been a series of increases: the full price of a TCO has increased from £1.24 in December 2022 to about £2.25 in December 2025 – a rise of 81%. If you factor in the size reduction, you’re actually paying 96% more.

And in 2017, McVities reduced the number of Jaffa Cakes in every standard packet from 12 to 10, raising the cost per cake from 9.58 p to 9.9 p. 

Even the latest electronic games are not immune to ‘shrinkflation’. In 2025, the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition was downgraded from 1 TB to 825 GB of internal storage without announcement and at the same price. Not just in everyday food and household products, there has been shrinkflation but also in the public bus service, where a reduction in services and routes have taken place, but at the same time bus fares have risen over the past few years. But that also has to do with the cuts in transport funding from the Central government to local government.

car industry

In the car industry, shrinkflation doesn’t mean making the actual physical car smaller; (in fact it is not called shrinkflation in the motor industry, but “decontenting”). Instead, manufacturers strip away physical features, reduce engine sizes, and lock standard amenities behind monthly subscriptions to maintain profit margins without raising the original price.

Carmakers have widely adopted engine downsizing (swapping V8s and V6s for turbocharged 4-cylinders, or 4-cylinders for 3-cylinders) to meet emissions regulations and lower production costs, while still marketing the vehicle at a profitable premium. Items that used to be standard—like heated seats, wireless charging pads, parking sensors, and touchscreens—are frequently omitted due to supply chain constraints or cost-cutting, yet the car’s retail price remains the same.

To save on manufacturing, brands often swap out premium leather, soft-touch plastics, and acoustic glass for harder, cheaper alternatives in lower trim levels. Because new vehicles are being ‘decontented’ in features or priced out of reach, many buyers are turning to older models. According to the RAC Foundation, a large portion of cars on UK roads are now older than 10 years, as drivers hold onto vehicles that feature more physical components and built-in capabilities.

But the most telling issue on shrinkflation is that house-builds today are 20 to 24 percent smaller than they were in the post-war period of the 1950s to 70s.

A report in 2018 not only concluded that family homes are smaller, but in line with this trend the rooms in the house are getting much smaller too. The size of living rooms, master bedrooms and kitchens all reduced in new properties built over the past 50 years. What’s more, the study shows that new builds now feature 2.95 bedrooms on average, a reduction since the early 1970s when the average number was 3.53.

The average UK house price has risen from £1,884 in 1953 to a staggering £274,930 in the first quarter of 2026. This by far outpaces inflation and average wage growth. This was along with the decimation of local authority public housing after 1980.

Capitalist economists say shrinkflation allows manufacturers and retailers to manage rising production costs while maintaining sales volume, operating margin, and profitability, and is often used as an alternative to raising prices in line with inflation.

In reality shrinkflation is one of the many ‘weapons’ as a response by the international capitalist class to the 2008 world economic slump. But it started in 1980 after the world economic slumps of 1974/75 and 1979/80. For example, coffee and loose leaf tea were sold in 1 lb (453.6 g) bags, which shrank to 400 g or smaller in the early 1980s but were the same price as a pound bag.

Socialist Party Scotland fights for a socialist government that will take into public ownership the top 150 companies that dominate the Scottish and British economy along with the banks and run them under democratic workers’ control and management with compensation on the basis of need.

This includes major food production and supermarkets as well as the construction companies that control 85-to-90% of the housing stock. As well as the nationalisation of land to prioritise food production that is sustainable and affordable.