Here, 1is July 2024 was therefore day 1 of the application of the “shrinkflation law” requiring distributors to inform their customers of products that had increased their price while reducing their format.
Among the ways to get around the obstacle for manufacturers who still want to pass somewhat steep price increases, improving the recipe is one of the “intelligent” strategies to avoid an episode of name and shame as wanted by the government: I named it… “nutriflation” (after shrinkflation, cheapflation, stretchflation, babyflation / reread here).
I’ll give you the case of Harrys sandwich bread, hot off the press. For the past month, the entire American Sandwich range from the Barilla group has been “no added sugar”. A promise that is widely highlighted on the bags. Out sugar therefore (3e ingredient in the Nature recipe). Enriched with fibers and flavors, the new Nature recipe thus goes from Nutri-Score B to A. Barilla has, in passing, anticipated the new method of calculating the Nutri-Score which would clearly penalize its range of sandwich bread.
On the PVC side, since the beginning of June, the increase is, let’s say, palpable: + 31% on the 550 g plain, + 22% on the 825 g plain and the 600 g wholemeal, + 9% on the 550 g 7 cereals. We cannot exclude that with the arrival of the new EANs the margin before the brands has temporarily improved on these very competitive codes. But, for consumption, the surge in prices will remain no less difficult to digest… Even for the good cause (nutritional).
