Kenyan manufacturers have been slowly reducing the sizes and weight of their goods while either maintaining or increasing their prices.
In an angry discourse by Kenyan netizens, it was noted that products that previously quantified higher have now reduced in quantity, while maintaining the same price.
Manufacturers have admitted that the high cost of production and raw materials have led to this phenomenon, otherwise known as shrinkflation.
What is Shrinkflation?
Shrinkflation is a blend of two words, shrink and inflation. It refers to reducing the size or quantity of a product while the price of the product remains the same or slightly increases.
In some cases, the term may indicate lowering the quality of a product or its ingredients while the price remains the same.
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Moreover, for manufacturers, to keep their profit margin, they opt to reduce their operating and production costs. This may seem impossible with the rates of inflation.
According to the KNBS statistics, the overall year on year inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 8.0 per cent, in May 2023.
This has led to the rise in prices of many goods and services, including ones used in the production process, therefore translating to higher prices of goods.
Consumers are known to be more sensitive to price changes than package downsizing, hence making it the best option for most manufacturers.
Nonetheless, such practices only thrive in sectors where consumers are not weight conscious.
How Manufacturers Effect Shrinkflation
Economic theories state that consumers are not rational creatures and therefore hardly notice net weight changes, until it hurts to the extreme.
Most companies are aware of this fact and have devised many ways to effect shrinkflation without being easily detected.
This includes changing the shape of their products, for example chocolate, changing their packaging into smaller sizes that can hold the new, smaller sizes and even straight up reducing the quality of their products.
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Notably, the most affected products are usually essentials such as food, soap, and confectionary.
Interestingly, some manufacturers employ this tactic whilst still increasing the prices of their commodities.
In such cases, companies often sell downsizing as a way of helping the environment, offering consumers more choice, or improving the quality and packaging of their products.
The Ethics of Shrinkflation
“Manufacturers have been experiencing rising cost of production due to increased tax rates, shortage of dollars and increased cost of logistics due to supply chain challenges and world commodity prices,” Lobby Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) stated in a past interview.
The practice of shrinkflation is not illegal if the manufacturers seek approval from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).
Moreover, former KEBS managing director Bernard Njiraini, in a past media interview, stated that they have intensified their surveillance to ensure manufacturers are not going against the rules.
“We have intensified the surveillance. Whatever is stated by the manufacturer should be what is provided,” he warned.
