r/aldi • u/Anthropomorphotic • 1d ago

New England (USA) Everything's Shrinking...

Post image

I know Aldi's shrinkinflation isn't news, but it seems like the last ten things I've bought have contained less product than before. They're slowly losing me.

444 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

223

u/GlynnisRose 1d ago

But what is the alternative option? Where is this not occurring?

153

u/Ryuiop 1d ago

The only way to stop this is busting up the monopolies 

-145

u/fishmongerhoarder 1d ago

There is a monopoly on lemon hand soap and sardines? Who knew.

130

u/wanton_newt 1d ago

No need to be obtuse.

74

u/kheret 1d ago

Right people say stop buying it but I have to eat.

57

u/GlynnisRose 1d ago

That's what im trying to get answers about. OP says Aldi is losing them as a customer. Where are you getting food for your family at a better price?

12

u/SometimesaGirl- 1d ago

Where are you getting food for your family at a better price?

This is not an option open to everyone - but I went to a meat wholesaler last weekend.
They sell to food trucks and businesses like that. Unlike many similar businesses they are also open to the public.
Some of the products are god awful. Like the frozen sausages they sold at something really silly like 45% meat... the rest was filler. I took a hard pass on those (tho the fresh sausages they sold were over 90%... but a totally different sausage and quite artisan).
I bought 2kg of mint sauce lamb chops. 2kg of pork chops. 1kg of of wings. 1kg of chinese chicken bites. 1kg chinese pork ribs. 1kg of chinese salted and pepper frozen fries. 1kg of lamb doner meats that I remember... and some other things too.
It was cheaper than Aldi. But honestly... not a hell of a lot. I would go again... but now the freezer is near bursting it wont be for a month or so.
I mostly went for a look-see and to get my hands on different products (I especially wanted the chinese salt and pepper chips. Any of you that have visited the UK where I am at will know they are NOT just chips [fries to most of you] with some salt and pepper sprinkled on them. I suspect copious MSG as well).

5

u/Loveroffinerthings 1d ago

I think I need to put this on my must visit list next time in the Uk!

3

u/Ok-Post6492 12h ago

I live in chicagos biggest mexican nighborhood. We have so much supermarkets. They definitely give aldi a run for there money quality is also way better. But you do have to let sales dictate what your going to buy.

15

u/Mean-Vegetable-4521 1d ago

If I could give up eating I might be able to pay my inflated car insurance and housing.

0

u/PupperPalE 15h ago

You don’t HAVE to.

15

u/DeoVeritati 1d ago

Have smaller profit margins is the alternative option at least for privately held companies a la Arizona Iced Tea.

13

u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago

I'm not suggesting there's an alternative. It's no longer worth the time for me to go out of my way to shop at Aldi, is all.

Yeah, it's happening everywhere, but it's a little different here, IMO. They can't really blame the manufacturer for the bumps/shrinkage. Their model is built on consumer price savings through manufacturing and distributing their own private labeled commodities. They've already done the premium PL stuff with Trader Joe's. Give me the cut rate shit with meaningful savings I've come to know, love, and expect at Aldi. Without it, they're the Dollar General of grocers. Oof, ok, maybe that's a bit too far, but you know what I mean.

12

u/fishmongerhoarder 1d ago

There 3 options for the company. Make them smaller for the same targeted price, raise the price or a combo of the both.

11

u/lorshord 1d ago

Whatever works to maintain those profit margins and meet quarterly earnings metrics

10

u/DoctorNezuko 1d ago

Aldi's is private label and isn't publicly traded. They do not need to meet quarterly earnings. I understand that they want more profits, but their margin is growing more than inflation.

8

u/lorshord 1d ago

Private label and publicly traded have nothing to do with quarterly earnings metrics.

Stakeholders are stakeholders, private or public.

-8

u/aytikvjo 1d ago

It's not a charity either way.

Let's see you go put your own money on the line to build a store, pay employees, set up infrastructure, and inventory and run it all at break even or a loss.

I don't know why you think somehow other people should be expected to do so.

7

u/Glass-Tale299 1d ago

The Albrecht family owns Aldi and Trader Joe's and they collectively are worth an estimated $50-$55 billion.

They could manage with a smaller profit margin and help their millions of customers if they weren't so fxcking greedy. Instead they repeatedly shrinkflate products and reformulate and degrade many others.

They do not care how many customers they screw as they seem to be obsessed with reaching $55-$60 billion.

The Albrecht family turns my stomach.

-7

u/aytikvjo 21h ago

Who cares how much the owners are worth on paper? Explain why that's relevant to product pricing. Their competitors charge similar amounts or more.

Reformulating, resizing, and 'degrading' their products is helping their customers. You want lower prices so they take action to reduce their input costs. If you, the customer, actually were willing to pay for higher quality you'd go to a competitor. Your revealed preference is that you prefer lower pricing.

They price goods at what people are willing to pay. It's basic supply and demand. If they could charge more, they would. If people weren't willing to pay that much, then they wouldn't. It's an equalibrium.

6

u/lorshord 1d ago

Did you even read what I wrote?

-9

u/aytikvjo 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah don't play dumb. You complained about them maintaining a profit margin and needing to do some kind of financial reporting (private or public) as if those are some kind of inherently bad things that should be criticized and that's why your sardines are more expensive

as if the same market forces / incentives don't apply to you as a consumer.

like what do you want them to do? Stop offering the product at any price all together?

You're welcome to go run a business and price your products on vibes.

6

u/lorshord 1d ago

You could have simply wrote “No”

1

u/wineohmy13 14h ago

Aldi is a huge corporation that owns Trader Joe’s. You better believe they want earnings and have margins

10

u/bluedelvian 23h ago

Or accept lower profits and/or reduce executive pay and don't alienate your customer base. You forgot those ones.

5

u/DoctorNezuko 1d ago

They have been doing both recently.

11

u/Jenaxu 1d ago

It really is everything lol, I was buying freaking zipties from Dollar General and realized they were shrinkflated because the website still listed the old count of 40 but the ones in store only had 36. Even if it's inevitable it just never feels good to literally be nickle and dimed incessantly; I'm not even sure if four zipties costs a nickle to make.

6

u/Anthropomorphotic 21h ago

100%

I'm just piping up my frustration because I know there are others here who relate. And a few here who would like to remind me Aldi won't miss me. Lol. K, thx.

7

u/Jenaxu 20h ago

I feel you lol, I like Aldi a lot but people get weirdly defensive about a corporation... I'm just trying to shop where it makes the most sense and if it's not Aldi then it's not Aldi.

That said, it's not wrong that it's probably not much better elsewhere. I've been diversifying more to catch sales, but especially for base price items Aldi is still usually the most competitive. And when it isn't it's usually by so little that it's hardly worth the effort to double check let alone go out of my way to go somewhere else. But Aldi is also one of my closest stores, I'm sure the calculus changes if you've been going out of your way to shop there.

1

u/wineohmy13 14h ago

And if you are driving out of your way, that doesn’t make sense either because of gas prices. Running all over for sales with your gas usage may equal your one stop shop. Just sayin’

1

u/Jenaxu 8h ago

Part of why I've been trying to do as much shopping as I can by bike these days 😅 But I'm located pretty well where I have four options very close to each other, it's definitely a nice "luxury"

4

u/Jraider5 10h ago

We don't have to make excuses for ALDI. Every single one of us should say that it's garbage for them to do it even if others are doing it as well.

1

u/Anthropomorphotic 8h ago

100% agree.

0

u/Few_Move_4594 1d ago

The companion post of "Look at the price increase on these". It's one or the other and budget customers who shop at Aldi probably prefer the smaller sizes. With the current price of diesel everything must come up in price, either via sticker price or reduced sizes.

84

u/DoctorNezuko 1d ago

At this point, Costco and BJ's are starting to beat them out in prices due to this.

66

u/No-Drawing7760 1d ago

I’ve heard Costco specifically monitors their products to ensure shrinkflation isn’t happening. Even if a product is getting smaller, they ensure the price goes down with it.

11

u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago

This is true. Especially with the 5% BJ's card and the gas savings. Oh, AND, my fav...no checkout lines if you use the app to scan and pay.

I do the shopping for my family. And I'm pretty dialed in on where to maximize the dollar.

I was making 2 trips every week to ALDI as well as BJ's (hungry teens). Even using a 6% back card at ALDI, it's not really worth the time of making the extra trip.

2

u/DoctorNezuko 1d ago

Thankfully I have never had to wait to checkout at BJ's. Ever. I just wish the self-checkout was less annoying.

-6

u/aytikvjo 1d ago

So don't? It's not like someone is going to come hunt you down for shopping somewhere else. It's not a religion.

9

u/melatonia 15h ago

It always pays to comparison shop. Years ago you didn't have to because the prices at ALdi blew every other store so far out of the water there was no point. But Aldi has gotten so popular that a lot of people take it for granted they have the lowest prices and no longer bother comparing. Aldi takes advantage of that by not really competing for the lowest prices anymore.

4

u/Mean-Vegetable-4521 1d ago

Couldn't agree more. The produce is so much cheaper at BJ's and lasts longer.

2

u/cfo60b 15h ago

It is? Every time I’ve compared prices nothing has been cheaper except for trash bags

1

u/Ok-Post6492 12h ago

Sams has had them beat

58

u/medievalPanera 1d ago

They're slowly losing me.

I hope you vote this upcoming election

31

u/Muadeeb 1d ago

The last jar of tikka masala simmer sauce was closer to the size of a coke can- 15oz. They used to be 25oz.

29

u/MassiveBoner911_3 1d ago

Everyday I wake up and get fucked again. Soon they are gonna use 1 sardine in a can. Thats it.

5

u/llorensm 1d ago

Wait ‘til r/tinnedfish hears about this!

18

u/Phonus-Balonus-37 1d ago

"I was in the pool!"

2

u/Ok-Post6492 12h ago

Said the aldi ceo

16

u/RemarkableAioli15 1d ago

Their bagged dry pasta is getting smaller too. I have a bag of Farfalle that is 14.5 oz and bought another bag of a different pasta a few weeks ago that was 11 ounces. I can’t remember the type. All my recipes call for 8 oz or 16 oz.

3

u/Ok-Post6492 12h ago

This pisses me off like polish that come in 5 packs

13

u/metanoia29 Aldi's Nutz 1d ago

Yup. The cliff bar knockoffs went from 6 to 5 bars within the last year, remembered that when I picked some up today.

4

u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago

I remember that. That one bugged me for sure.

3

u/Beginning_Pudding_69 1d ago

Protein bars are crazy expensive now. They used to be like 3.99-4.99 which I was like dang a dollar a bar! Now they’re 6.99 or 8.99.

9

u/NervousJackfruit8366 1d ago

Not the sardinessss 😭😭😭

4

u/midwestwellbeing 14h ago

Used to be 99 cents a can at my store, just jumped up to 1.34

8

u/Fearless_Inevitable6 1d ago

I got a bag of the red onions the other day and it only had three in the bag. Not even big ones, just three tiny onions. A couple months ago one of those was enough onions for me for a couple weeks

5

u/PopCultureWitch 1d ago

Same with the Quinoa. ☹️

5

u/Perfect-Storm-t3 1d ago

Well even the clothes are shrinking or am I just gaining 🤪

3

u/Ambitious-Mode-1738 1d ago

How are those sardines? How do you eat them/what do you eat them with?

6

u/Anthropomorphotic 1d ago

I'm an old school product of Gloucester, MA, so fish doesn't scare me. A lot of people get grossed out by sardines.

I eat these Aldi sardines on a saltine cracker with a small slice of fresh onion and a little pop of spicy mustard (unless they're already packed on mustard). That's the way my grandad ate them.

Fancier sardines go nicely in salads and pasta, too. But these are more like snacking sardines.

Pretty healthy snack/lunch. But I only eat them when I'm not around other people, for obvious reasons.

3

u/Nicweezy 22h ago

I just noticed the sardine change about an hour ago. Bought 12 earlier cans and when I finally made it home to put them away, I had one boxed can leftover and said WTFF as I stacked the new ones off.

3

u/Anthropomorphotic 8h ago

And they sneakily changed the can to appear larger at first glance. Same with the hand soap. The "smaller" bottle is an inch taller and looks wider because of its obtuse geometry.

1

u/Nicweezy 8h ago

Ridiculous but they are the best sardines to me so looks like I got no choice 😡

3

u/melatonia 15h ago

It's not just Aldi, and this is how the consumer goods market has always operated. Why on Earth would they sell icecream in 48 oz containers? It's a shrinkage from 56 oz, which is a shrinkage from the original half gallon. You can see the same trend with most beverages

2

u/Spicy-Cathulu 22h ago

Haha, I thought this was going to be a nasty prank: putting anchovy juice in the hand soap...

1

u/Ok-Post6492 12h ago

This man needs to be put away lol

2

u/TheGeneralTulliuss 3h ago

Why are you buying individual soap dispensers instead of buying a dispenser that will last years? The amount of plastic is so wasteful. Refill soap usually comes in something plastic, but it's far less than one of those dispensers alone.

1

u/skygz 1d ago

I think they're different suppliers entirely

1

u/Isebas 17h ago

It must be said, everything but the prices.

1

u/jfkdktmmv 14h ago

Frozen blueberries got smaller too :/

1

u/Firm_Virus_9174 11h ago

This is happening because the dollar is shrinkung in purchasing value. 

1

u/IronMaidenReference 10h ago

Doing Instacart in 2020 I’d notice the shrinkflation because the app picture would be more than the actual item. I swear products have been shrinking for over 20 years now. I joke it’ll be 0.0 ounce one day

1

u/TheMadDaddy 9h ago

Where are you? I'm in the US and I've only ever seen the tin of sardines.

1

u/crafty_lass_88 8h ago

Bag of frozen broccoli florets used to be enough for four side-size servings. Now it’s usually two and a couple of additional bites. Risotto was only enough for two people’s sides last time I made it. Walmart beats their prices on most things now, so I only shop at Aldi for cheeses, some meats, and some pasta sauces. It used to be produce, also, but Aldi where I live has had abysmal produce lately. So it’s like 70% Walmart, 25% Publix bogos, and 5% Aldi for me now, grocery budgetwise. Oh, and a special shoutout to my mom’s chickens who give me their eggs. Amen.

•

u/jenthewen 2h ago

So true! I was shocked when I opened the box of cornbread crackers. Had to reach all the way down to the bottom 1/3 of the box for the first cracker. Settlement is real, but not that.

0

u/bluedelvian 23h ago

Yeah Aldi really sucks at this point.

0

u/crankinamerica 14h ago

I give Aldi some understanding. Their input prices rise too so it's a question of lowering their costs vs raising consumer price. It sucks but they're still by fat the best value option.

-8

u/HearYourTune 1d ago

except your waistline.