‘Skimpflation’ hits grocery store aisles amid rising inflationary pressures

globalnews.ca:

On top of food inflation and shrinkflation, consumer analysts are warning customers about the rise of another issue: skimpflation.

“Skimpflation is basically when a manufacturer decides to reformulate a product usually using cheaper ingredients,” consumer watchdog Edgar Dworsky told Global News.

Dworsky has been analyzing food products in the United States and has been posting his research on Consumer World.

He noticed a brand of salad dressing and a margarine that reduced the amount of oil. Both items added water and salt as a supplement.

“What became the primary ingredient? Water! They literally watered down the product!”

Between increasing stock prices, shrinking the product size, or offering less quantity — swapping ingredients is another way for companies to manage costs.

Dworsky blames the climbing costs of raw materials, labour and transportation of goods.

“Manufacturers are pressed because of inflation to cut costs. One way to cut costs is to put less expensive ingredients in a product,” Dworsky said.

He adds there may be more products that could be altered by manufacturers but consumers wouldn’t be aware because it’s difficult to detect.

“We don’t know the recipes. We don’t know the formula,” he said.

A recent example spotted in Edmonton: Costco blueberry bagels that don’t actually contain any blueberries.

The ingredients listed included flour, water, sugar and “imitation-blueberries,” which it said was sugar, corn syrup, corn cereal, cornstarch, palm oil, artificial flavour, and three food colourings: brilliant blue FCF, allura red, fast green FCF.

Dalhousie University’s agri-food analytics labs director Sylvain Charlebois said this is a phenomenon that has been ongoing for several years, but a few cases have