'Cheapflation': there are ice creams that are no longer what they were

From the creators of reduflation (include less quantity of product for the same price) now comes cheapflation, which consists of selling lower quality products at the same price. The “trick” is to replace some of the usual ingredients with others of lower quality.

Is cheapflation legal?

Yes, it is a legal practice as long as the manufacturer warns about it on the label. And it is not worth doing it with the fine print. It is mandatory that the change be indicated next to the name of the product in a font size that is not less than 75% of the size of the name. That is, you have to put a warning in conditions.

In which products is this practice occurring?

-Ice creams

This summer we may find that some ice creams are renamed “frozen desserts”. According to the BOE, the definition of “ice cream” is reserved for a product that contains at least 5% of dietary fat and in which the proteins will be exclusively of dairy origin.. Therefore, for an ice cream to be called as such, all the proteins have to be of dairy origin.. If, to reduce costs, milk is replaced by vegetable fats and the protein is no longer 100% of dairy origin, we cannot call it ice cream and instead we will have an abstract “frozen dessert”.

-Chocolates

According to the BOE definition, chocolate is defined as the product obtained from cocoa beans, cocoa paste, cocoa powder or low-fat cocoa powder and sucrose, with or without the addition of cocoa butter, and containing at least 35% total cocoa dry matter, 14% defatted dry cocoa and 18% cocoa butter.

What happen? That cocoa butter is more expensive than vegetable fats. A ton of cocoa beans can cost three times as much as a ton of palm oil. For this reason, some manufacturers have replaced cocoa butter with palm oil, calling the resulting products “chocolate substitutes”.. Important! If the butter is still present in the percentage marked in the BOE and it is not completely replaced but simply vegetable oils are added to the product, it can still be called chocolate.

In addition to the price, in chocolate there are some reasons that from the technological point of view (not nutritional) add up to use vegetable fats. On the one hand with palm oil you get that classic melt in the mouth that drives us crazy. On the other hand, something more practical is also achieved, such as better conservation: the classic whitish appearance of chocolate that appears when it is stored at high temperatures can be avoided with fats such as palm oil, since this oil has a higher melting point.. In short, by substituting one fat for another, the product is cheaper and looks better. All are advantages, except for our mountain body.

-Mayonnaise

The rise in prices of sunflower oil has caused vegetable fat to be replaced by a cheaper one in some products, such as soybean oil.. What differences will the consumer find? If we take as an example the real case of a mayonnaise manufacturer that has replaced sunflower oil with soybean oil, there are several warnings that it has made transparently on its website.. On the one hand, it indicates that the nutritional table has been modified on the packaging, since soybean oil and sunflower oil have different percentages of saturated fats.. On the other hand, they warn allergy sufferers: despite soy being one of the 14 allergens included in the legislation, the soybean oil included in this particular mayonnaise is completely refined, so it is not considered allergenic.. When making ingredient substitutions, it is important to pay special attention to ensuring that the new ingredients do not include allergens that may cause problems in consumers who have not noticed the change.

What can we do?

As always: take out the magnifying glass. Carefully reading the list of ingredients and the nutritional table is the best way to avoid getting caught in a poke. In any case, let’s remember that the foods in which these changes occur are generally ultra-processed foods that are not included in any food guide and therefore, in themselves, should only be consumed occasionally.

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