It's bad enough prices on just about everything you buy at the supermarket have gone up, but I noticed something interesting recently that makes it even worse.

After doing an extensive grocery shopping last week at Stop & Shop in New Milford, and paying a lot more then I had just a few weeks before, I noticed something very strange when I was putting things away.

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When comparing the size of the most recent box of cereal I bought with one that I had purchased a while back, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The newest box was actually smaller then the other box. Yes, smaller and with less cereal inside as well.

I also noticed this with those prepared soups from Stew Leonards. The older soups were in a larger container, now the containers are much smaller. I didn't actually get a chance to compare the total ounces of both since I didn't have an older soup container to compare it to, but the size has definitely changed.

This really got me curious as to what is actually going on here. Why am I paying more, and getting less? So I did a little research, a quick google search, and this is what I learned.

All over the world, food packages are indeed shrinking. The latest statistics show that anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of all packaged foods have shrunk in the last five years. It's a way for food companies to off set their cost during an inflation surge like we're seeing today.

According to businessinsider.com, the tactic is know as "Shrinkflation", which means you actually get less for your money, as the manufactures have reduced the size of the product. They do this because they can give you less and still charge the same amount as you were paying for a larger amount. This way they don't have to raise the prices, so you're not ticked off about that, but you are actually getting less of the product.

Now from what I've seen, it's not just happening with cereal and soups, it's an across the board thing that's affected products like toilet paper, ice cream, candy bars, even your favorite soda cans.

So the next time you say to someone that you remember these products being bigger and they respond that they haven't gotten smaller, you've just gotten bigger, well your probably 100% right, they have gotten smaller.

It's become so obvious now though that reddit.com has a page dedicated solely to stories from all over about products and manufacturers that have jumped on the shrinkflation bandwagon.

As a consumer, there's not too much we can do about it at this point except hope prices start to stabilize and drop in the not so distant future, because what we're really learning is something we kind of knew all along and that's that size does matter.

LOOK: 40 Discontinued & Special Edition Kellogg's Cereals

 

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