Shrinkflation this, price-gouging that — Canadian grocery stores have been accused of it all hundreds of times over in recent months, called out online near-daily for their pricing, their discount programs, their security measures and more.

Along with chains like Loblaws, food manufacturers are taking some of the blame for trying to sneakily reduce product sizes without customers noticing, but when it is a store's own house brand that is offering less of something for the same price (or even more), the ire feels more pointed — and yes, Loblaw Companies Ltd. is often the target.

This week, it is the supermarket's President's Choice brand frozen berries that shoppers are enraged about, with one resident noticing at their local Loblaws-owned store that the size of the bag of certain fruits has been reduced from 600 g some months ago to just 300 g in April.

Shrinkflationberries
byu/neverfoil inloblawsisoutofcontrol

"These berries that were 600 g a few months ago, were reduced to 400 g just after xmas and now this week, are 300g for the same old price," the individual wrote alongside a photo of their find on Loblaws is Out of Control, a subreddit dedicated to hating on (and now boycotting) the grocery giant.

"They even have new 300 g bags and older 400 g bags in the same freezer as preshrunk 600 g blueberries. Size doesn't matter, they are all 2/$10," the individual marvelled in their post, which has garnered hundreds of upvotes and dozens of comments on the platform.

Many chimed in to call the quiet change "unreal" — especially as the packaging appears the exact same as before, right down to its size — adding that Canada "needs legislation that mandates packaging sizing changes are clearly labelled for consumers."

A few said they will no longer be buying frozen fruit from any Loblaws location, or already have, with one saying they did so after realizing "not only was it getting more expensive and the bags were getting smaller, but the quality was garbage. I was constantly getting bags with fruit that looked like it had all gone through a chipper."

And still others wondered where all of the deception and profiteering in the industry will end — the answer to which seems, unfortunately, like not anytime soon given how public and persistent this issue has been for months now.

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inloblawsisoutofcontrol

blogTO visited the Loblaws at Queen St. W and Portland Street in Toronto to verify the issue, and found varying but physically alike 300 g, 400 g, 500 g and 600 g bags of frozen fruit, all priced the same at two for $10 or $5.59 each.

At our location, though, we did not find any differently-weighted bags of the exact same kind of fruit, so it is unclear whether different types of fruit have always been varying weights to price them the same per bag, or whether some bags are indeed shrinking (many online claim that, to their knowledge and memory, it is a mix of both).