Unless he's willing to do something about it, I don't think making this kind of statement is politically helpful. The snack makers will just ignore him, and then he ends up looking impotent and irrelevant, feeding the Republican narrative against his presidency.
Same thing with his administration publicly wringing its hands about the death toll in Gaza. Meanwhile the US continues funding Netanyahu's war machine, which publicly thumbs its nose at the president. It projects weakness.
And he shouldn’t be able to do much to directly interfere with the market.
However one thing he can do is regulate transparency. A big reason shrinkflation is so widespread is that you can hide the change pretty well, but consumer protection regulations already require clear pricing, including per unit, and at least some semblance of truth in advertising, so additional regulations to improve honesty and transparency are quite appropriate. Government needs to establish a fair market, then it’s up to the market
That may not prevent shrinkflation but at least we can keep products companies from lying about it. Then it’s up to us
There's a ratio of air-to-chip that gives the optimal amount of chips to most protection provided by the 'pillow' of air. Exceed that and you've got a bag of chip sawdust or need to switch to hard packaging like Pringles tubes (which... Pringles don't really cost more, so maybe tubes are the way to go anyway).
IIRC that ratio is something like 30% chip to 70% air by volume. Which feels like you're getting ripped off, but is defensible for quality sake.
The 'kinda' kicks in when chip manufacturers know they've trained us to expect a low chip-to-air ratio, and crank it up to like 10-90, and keep the cost the same. That's just fucking the consumer, and the manufacturers can go to hell for that shit.
I've heard it's not air but some non-acidic inert gas for longer periods of preservation. These chips and snacks go bad in a day after contacting the air. It doesn't explain it's volume and a choice of soft package tho.
I would say that companies artificially raising prices because their competitors are doing it too is actually a big problem which accounts for a ton of needless economic hardship.
Presidents have previously implemented anti trust policies; it's not like this is anything new.
And goddamn it my oreo had regular sized cookies with a tiny little nickle sized speck of filling in the middle. It looked ridiculous.
Nixon froze prices or something. As far as repubs go, he was the most reasonable that I've heard about (also stuff about the environment or national parks? I'm not an expert). And he was a monster, so think about what that means about everyone that followed him.
Snacks?! How about housing costs, costs for higher education, or medical care?! Maybe do something about internet provider monopolies coupled with data caps in large swaths of the country??
But no, you want to make sure Americans can stuff their faces with 10% more dorito dust per bag. Jesus man.
“There is no denying that shrinkflation is real and that it is having a measurable impact on family budgets,” concluded a December report published by Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
The report found common household and grocery items noticeably decreased in size between January 2019 and October 2023, while unit prices rose more than 20%.
For example, a pack of Double-Stuffed Oreos now weigh 6% less, Gatorade bottles hold 12% less liquid, and a Walmart’s Great Value Ultra Strong paper towel roll has 28% fewer sheets, according to the report.
Biden also didn’t address the companies by name, although the video panned over snacks like Doritos, Wheat Thins and Gatorade, which were mentioned in Casey’s report.
A CNN poll conducted by SSRS last month found just 26% of Americans say they feel the economy is starting to recover from the problems it faced in the past few years, up 9 points from December 2022.
Most Americans who said the economy is still in a downturn cited inflation and the cost of living generally (50%) or the price of specific items like food (9%) or housing (7%), with many pointing to their own financial situations.
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