Shrinkflation in charts

Smaller pack, bigger price per unit

Each pair is one product: how much the pack shrank (ink) and how much its price per gram, millilitre or sheet changed (red), using the shelf prices the source recorded. These are the 12 most recently reported priced cases, not the most extreme ones, sorted by the price change. Across all 689 priced cases (2015–2026), the median pack lost 16.0% and the median price per unit rose 20.0%; in 25% the shelf price went up too, so the per-unit rise beat the size cut alone.

Priced cases

689 of 1,356

Median size cut

−16.0%

Median price per unit

+20.0%

Shelf price also went up

25% (172)

Scope: 689 of 1,356 documented pack cases have both shelf prices; the other 667 are left out (we never estimate a price), as are restaurant menu items. Most priced cases come from German and Dutch consumer agencies, which list a smaller pack mainly when it got dearer per unit, so this shows how big hidden rises are, not how often a shrink is fair. The table also shows the rise the size cut implies if the price had stayed the same (not drawn). Method: Index method · about our sources. Generated 5 Nov 2026. Chart: ShrinkRadar.

Shrinking packs vs official inflation

The ShrinkRadar Index puts the per-unit price change of each documented shrink next to the official inflation rate for the same category, country and time. Across all categories the median is +20.0% per unit against +3.6% official inflation (642 priced cases with an official match), and 89% of those cases rose faster than the official rate.

Scope: the 8 categories with the most priced cases, of 21 with a figure (at least 5 cases); every category is on the Index page. Cases since 2018. Not compared with an unmatched headline CPI. Method: Index method and limits. Generated 5 Nov 2026. Chart: ShrinkRadar.

Documented cases by year

Packs that got smaller, by the year they changed (or were reported). Documented cases peak in 2026 with 318. Part of the rise is more reporting: consumer agencies and newspapers started tracking shrinkflation closely during the 2021–2023 inflation spike.

Scope: 1,366 documented cases; 36 from before 2015 or without a year are not shown. 2026 counts cases up to 5 Nov 2026. Method: how cases are counted. Generated 5 Nov 2026. Chart: ShrinkRadar.

What shrinks: cases by category

The 10 categories with the most documented cases. Chocolate & Candy leads with 189. Bars count cases; the median cut is how much the typical pack in that category lost.

Scope: 1,366 documented cases; 504 in 23 smaller categories and 2 uncategorised are not shown. These counts show what gets caught and reported, not how common shrinkflation is in each category. All categories: statistics · category pages. Generated 5 Nov 2026. Chart: ShrinkRadar.