For anyone who wants to make a case for shrinkflation, consider the experience of a dissatisfied Doritos fan.
In a now-viral video, Avery (@someguynameavery) showed himself opening a bag of Doritos that contained a measly five chips. As of Wednesday afternoon, his video had over 39,100 views.
Avery’s video started off with him silently opening a bag of Doritos brand chips, which looked as though they were part of a multi-bag box of chips. But his facial expression suggested that he knew exactly what to expect upon opening the bag.
@someguynameavery What in the Dorito!! #Doritos #shrinkflation #wherestherestofya #inflation ♬ 5 Chips – Some Guy Avery
Then, he poured out the chips and began counting them silently—using his hand to tally finger-by-finger.
“Five chips!” he exclaimed.
Viewers were outraged right along with him.
“That’s not really five!” one user contended. “More like two and a half!”
“This makes me SO mad and the price has gone up significantly as well,” another said.
“Is that even a serving size?” a third viewer wondered.
“I don’t even buy chips anymore,” a fourth user shared. “They cost too much now.”
Shrinkflation is a way to mask the increase of a product’s price by changing the amount of what you give a customer versus what you charge. And it’s become enough of an issue that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has begun taking note of it. In a February 2023 post on its site, it noted, “while only a small number of prices in the CPI experience downsizing each year,” with “downsizing” being its alternate term for shrinkflation, “it does affect the indexes for specific item categories where such size reductions are common.”
Snacks were the second-most susceptible category to shrinkflation, according to the report, looking at numbers between 2015 and 2021. Only household paper products experienced a higher percentage of shrinkflation among all products offered.
The report did add, however, that “the impact of product downsizing at the all commodity and services level is minimal, with an average annual effect of 0.01 percent per year, so while consumers may notice shrinkflation at the grocery store, it has a very small impact on the overall inflation picture they face.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Avery via TikTok comment and to Frito-Lay, Doritos’ parent company, by email.
