On Tuesday, Cookie Monster, the ravenous blue puppet who has a penchant for chocolate chip cookies, expressed his dismay at “shrinkflation,” which has been called “the worst corporate idea in years” by Forbes.
Shrinkflation, a portmanteau of the words shrink and inflation, is a decades-old strategy where items shrink in size or quantity — sometimes even quality — while their prices remain the same. The grocery shrink ray is just one of many responses during periods of shortages and inflation. Recently, shrinkflation took off during the pandemic, when significant supply chain disruptions and labor shortages forced companies to drive up food and transportation costs. Instead of alleviating those costs, companies kept them high to offset higher wholesale costs while downsizing their products.
