> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Shrinkflation Is Good - URL: https://goodoil.news/shrinkflation-is-good/ - Published: 2026-10-26T20:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-26T19:59:59.000Z - Description: When I’m on the scales. - Author: Guest Post - Tags: NZ Politics, Business, Economy **LilBaP** Not all bananas are the same, according to my wife. Green ones. Long and short ones. She only buys the ones that look like they have had a decent upbringing – apparently. Fresh fruit and vegetables will never be identical. Weather, soil...the week the ship sat outside the port. A banana is allowed to be a banana. You can see the one you want and put it in the trolley without reading anything except the price per kilogram. A packet, can, wrapper or a container of any type is not the same. Processed food has discovered a quieter unit of measure: the gram that used to be there. Shrinkflation is the polite word. You pay the same, sometimes more, but the packaging has gone on a ‘crash diet’ it did not tell you about. Consumer NZ’s 2025 grocery survey found 72 per cent of shoppers had noticed it, but only 12 per cent thought the change was usually clear. Most of the rest had worked out they were being ‘winked’ at. Cadbury Roses went from 420 grams to 380g between Christmas 2024 and Christmas 2025\. Mondelēz cited cocoa costs and said a smaller box was kinder than a bigger price. Keri juice went from three litres to 2.4 and Coca-Cola New Zealand blamed the orange crop. Essity cut Purex mega rolls from 450 to 410 sheets because pulp and energy had risen. Nestlé Scorched Almonds shrank from 240g to 180g in 2026 but the recommended retail price fell only 11 per cent so the unit price actually rose roughly 18 per cent. Consumer NZ gave it a ‘Yeah-Nah’ award. Canned goods make the same move even easier. A can that held 390g now holds 375g. Same size can and almost the same label. A sealed product that used to be 200g is now 180g. At first glance it looks the same. Most people only notice once they get home and open the can. The dollar in your wallet had already shrunk before you reached the aisle. Food prices rose 4.6 per cent in the year to December 2025, according to Stats NZ but it felt like 20 per cent. By September 2026 the annual rise had eased to 2.4 per cent nationally and it still felt like 20 per cent. Foodstuffs’ comparable basket was up 1.6 per cent. Fuel, freight, power, product, wages and a weaker New Zealand dollar are all factored in. A manufacturer who will not swallow the full increase has two levers: the price or the pack. And no, it is not only the supermarket chain demanding the change. The brand owner prints the new weight: Cadbury, Keri, Nestlé, and the Purex mill all did. The duopoly then does what a duopoly does. Foodstuffs and Woolworths still hold 82 per cent of the national grocery market, unchanged on the Commerce Commission’s June 2026 report. Foodstuffs’ co-operatives remain near the top of international EBIT-margin comparisons, ahead of Coles, Tesco and others. Woolworths New Zealand reported $8.49 billion in sales and $163 million EBIT to June 2026 – thin by Australian standards, yet part of a market that has not become meaningfully more competitive. One in four products in a 2025 study of 38 New Zealand stores was a quantity surcharge: the bigger pack cost more per unit. That is not a crop failure, but a packaging change by the manufacturer before it hits the shelf. So the trolley gets it from both ends. The factory shrinks the packaging. The aisle keeps the margin. The power bill, diesel and weaker dollar sit underneath both. And this is why a state supermarket, a stronger Commerce Commission or another round of ‘excessive price’ laws will not put the 40 grams back in the Roses or 15–20 grams back in a can. Chlöe can talk about buying stores. Wong can promise the watchdog another tooth. Politicians on the right also make noises about the duopoly. Hipkins can ban ‘excessive prices’ and ‘price gouging’ – words lawyers retire on. None of them print the label, run a juice plant or a cannery or keep the lights on at the packhouse. The brand owners decide the new weight. The supermarkets decide the shelf price and the margin. More power over the retailers does not force Mondelēz, Nestlé or Essity to put the grams back. It simply moves the argument further up the chain and leaves the unit price untouched. Unit pricing is the only honest label. Dollars per 100 grams. If the box has been on a diet, the unit price grasses on it. Politicians promising to change the supermarket duopoly can pass more laws, create more commissioners and threaten more investigations. They cannot legislate a cheaper cocoa crop or a stronger New Zealand dollar. They know it, but many voters do not. The noise is useful to the politicians in an election year but the grams will not come back and the click-baiting will quieten down after the election, when there is a whole new crisis to focus on.