The same price but less product is an underhand way of deceiving consumers. This is called reduflación in Spanish. In English its called swindling bastardry… sort of.

Organización de Consumidores y Usuarios (OCU) considers this as competentia desleal (unfair trading) and it is punishable under Spanish law. For this reason, the OCU had reported several top brand names over this practice to the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) which is the Spanish competition regulator.

The OCU have included six important companies in the food sector, which are: Pastas Gallo, Danone, Pescanova, Colacao, Tulipán and Campofrío. The OCU considers that there are more brand names doing it as they have uncovered that around 7% of items in a shopping basket have had their size reduced but not their price.

Companies, rather than putting up prices owing to inflation, and in consequence watch their customers going to shop elsewhere, have opted to supposedly keeping prices steady but reducing the product size, which is just a roundabout way of putting up prices in reality as shoppers have to buy more such items for the same domestic consumption.

The OCU, regardless of whether this practice is legal or not, considers it an “obscure practice,” as the difference in content is imperceptible for consumers making these undercover price rises escape their notice.

Editorial comment: do you remember that you could have sworn that chocolate bars and packets of crisps were much bigger when you were a kid, but then you put it down to the fact that your hands were smaller so everything seemed larger in them (drag your mind back from the gutter) well, it turns out that you were right in the first place.

(News: Spain)