'Skimpflation', the latest hoax seen in English supermarkets with tissues or margarine

After the arrival of inflation (increase in prices) and redflation (less quantity of product for the same price) in supermarkets, a new strategy has emerged that has already been verified, at least, in English supermarkets.. This is what the British have begun to call 'skimpflation', a combination of the words skimp and inflation: that is, the ingredients in certain products are discreetly reduced.

The British newspaper The Guardian defined it last July as “the silent degradation of specifications” in items such as margarine, guacamole or tissues.

This is due, as they explain, to the increase in the cost of some ingredients, which has led supermarkets and manufacturers to “silently change recipes” and reduce “the size of some products to keep prices on shelves low.”

This practice has been observed in foods such as margarines, guacamole and mayonnaise or items such as paper tissues.

In the first case, “some retailers have more than halved the amount of olive oil in spreads and the amount they use in sauces without highlighting a change in the recipe,” the British media has highlighted. .

For example, if a margarine previously contained 21% olive oil, now that amount has been reduced to only 10% of that ingredient.. For guacamole, some manufacturers have gone from including 80% avocado and 5% red onion to 77% avocado and an unspecified amount of onion.

As far as tissues are concerned, “the rising cost of paper has led to a reduction in the size of individual tissues and sheets of kitchen paper,” they highlight.. In the example detected by The Guardian, some Tesco supermarket brand scarves had measurements of 300 mm x 260 mm, which have now been reduced to measuring 280 mm x 235 mm.

Although the changes are small, “they all involve the reduction of key, expensive ingredients, and some came alongside price increases or cuts in packaging sizes,” The Guardian adds.

Some consumers who have noticed this practice and have wanted to make it known on social networks such as TikTok. This is the case of user Dre Pao, who has talked about this on his channel: “Do your favorite snacks taste different? This could be the reason,” he indicates in the text that accompanies the video.

“Be careful with this grocery scam: skimpflation,” warns. “Your favorite products are secretly changing their ingredients using lower quality ingredients to save money and avoid supply chain problems,” he maintains.

According to this user, “cheap brands now use modified dairy substances instead of real cheese,” and “chocolate has more chemicals than before,” a problem that is “happening all over the world,” he says.