Walk into any supermarket in Europe and you might notice something odd: the chocolate bar you used to buy is a little lighter, the bag of crisps a little emptier, the toothpaste tube a little slimmer. The price, however, stays the same. This is shrinkflation — the practice of reducing the weight, volume, or quantity of a product while keeping its price unchanged.
It is not a new phenomenon, but it has become more visible since the inflation surge of 2022. In France, a syrup maker reduced its bottles from 750ml to 600ml in 2019, a move that consumer group Foodwatch later calculated amounted to a price increase of more than 37% per litre. In Germany, a chocolate brand shrank its bars from 100g to 90g, prompting a court ruling against the company in May 2026. Another German manufacturer introduced 75g bars in 2026, down from its usual 100g format.
The scale of the problem is significant. According to a 2025 European Commission report, 74% of consumers have noticed products getting smaller without becoming cheaper. That figure reflects a widespread sense of frustration among shoppers who feel they are being short-changed at the till.
Why do manufacturers shrink products?
The main driver is rising production costs. "Some manufacturers have been looking at reducing the packaging and the quantities to maintain prices, instead of increasing them," said Christel Delberghe, director general of EuroCommerce, which represents European retailers and wholesalers. "Cost increases are being passed on through the chain overall," added Leena Whittaker, EuroCommerce's director of competitiveness. "If the costs of energy, inputs, production, and processing increase, prices will go up."
Shrinkflation is a way for companies to pass on cost increases without triggering the sticker shock of a higher price. It plays on a psychological blind spot: reductions of just 5% to 7% can go unnoticed. Some companies also advertise a "new recipe" or "improved quality" without drawing attention to changes in quantity.
For shoppers, the trick is to check the net weight, the number of items in multipacks, and the price per kilogram or litre on shelf labels. Comparing unit prices can reveal that a smaller package is actually more expensive than a larger one.
What are the rules in Europe?
The EU has no specific law against shrinkflation. Instead, it relies on broader rules against misleading business practices, such as the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. That directive bans misleading practices, but it does not explicitly address shrinkflation.
Loïc de Hults, a senior associate at law firm CMS Belgium, believes existing EU law already offers some protection. "There is already a general prohibition of misleading practice. And in Germany, for instance, the court of Hamburg considered that reducing the volume of a product and keeping the same packaging without correctly informing the consumer is a misleading practice. So, this is already covered by European law," he said.
Still, he acknowledged that shoppers may not immediately notice when a familiar product gets smaller. "If it's something that they're buying weekly, the first time that they will buy the new product, they will obviously not notice unless they're really reading all the labelling on the products," he said.
The issue reached the European Parliament. On 15 July 2025, its Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee held a public hearing where lawmakers examined how practices like shrinkflation and dynamic pricing affect shoppers. The hearing led to a question to the Commission about whether existing consumer laws were enough to tackle shrinkflation.
The Commission defended current rules, pointing to mandatory weight labels and unit prices as ways for consumers to identify price increases. It said national authorities must enforce the law and promised to continue monitoring the market.
National rules: a patchwork approach
In March 2025, the Commission opened proceedings against Italy after it introduced rules for manufacturers to put warning labels on products that had shrunk. Brussels argued that these labels could create barriers to trade between EU countries and suggested notices on supermarket shelves instead.
Other European countries have their own rules. Since July 2024, French supermarkets larger than 400 square metres must warn shoppers when products shrink but their price per kilogram or litre increases. Stores must show the old and new quantities, along with the price increase, for two months, or risk fines of up to €15,000.
Austria introduced similar rules in April 2026, requiring larger supermarkets and health and beauty shops to flag products that shrink while their unit price rises by at least 3%. Romania also introduced mandatory notices in 2024, while Belgium has discussed similar legislation but has yet to adopt specific rules.
Competition between supermarket chains also affects how much shoppers pay, as retailers compete on prices and negotiate with suppliers. Differences between countries are not always what shoppers might expect: Eurostat figures for 2024 put food prices 18% above the EU average in France, compared with 7% in Belgium.
De Hults warned that different national rules could complicate matters for manufacturers selling products across Europe. "If we are speaking about packaging, it has to be regulated at EU level. Otherwise, it will be too complicated for the manufacturers," he said. Common EU rules would help companies understand what they can and cannot do, particularly as more countries introduce their own requirements. "Specific rules at EU level would be good just so that everybody knows what they can do in every country," he added.
For now, European shoppers are left to navigate a landscape where a familiar product may quietly become smaller, and where the rules of the game vary from one country to the next. As cost-of-living pressures persist, the debate over shrinkflation is unlikely to fade.
