The Organization of Consumers and Users has been showing itself for some time against the reduction that more and more companies apply to their products. Although it is not something, in principle, illegal, OCU considers that some of the most popular food brands abuse this practice “cheating” to the consumer by means of a hidden price increase.
In this way, the organization has finally decided report officially before the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) to Pastas Gallo, Danone, Pescanova, Colacao, Tulipán and Campofrío, and they do not rule out adding new names to the list.
The concept of reduflation It might sound foreign to most consumers until recently, but last year it began to spread in our popular vocabulary when the image of traditional ice creams that, suddenly, became viral on social networks. they seemed to have shrunk of size. As already explained in Magnetwere not our imaginations: the size of many products of habitual consumption is shrinking.
The problem, and this is where the OCU’s complaint comes from, is that this reduction is not notified to the consumer and sometimes not to the place of sale, in the case of supermarkets that maintain the old label of the shelves reflecting the previous size or weight. And of course, the price of these refluxed products does not decrease in proportion.
Thus, we are paying the same or more for smaller products, such as ice cream, containers with less volume or bags and packages with fewer units. For example, yogurts that maintain their previous design but no longer contain the traditional 125 g, but 120 g. Must watch to read it and check it, but if they don’t tell you, you won’t even notice.
OCU considers that this practice is very objectionable because the consumer does not have clear and transparent information about the price increase, and it also alters free competition in the market. The organization has been studying this practice for some time and they claim to have identified that 7% of products of our usual basket have suffered reduction.
They also encourage the identification and sharing of more examples on the networks through hashtags #StopReduflationin order to spread the information among all consumers and, if their experts consider it necessary, report our brands to the Competition.
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