CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Shrinkflation Shelf Notices Debate

When Doris Leclair opened her customary box of crackers last spring, it seemed to hold more air. The box and the price were unchanged; the contents had quietly fallen from 250 to 200 grams. Economists call the practice “shrinkflation,” and a bill before the legislature aims to expose it. Grocery stores would have to post a shelf notice beside any product whose contents have shrunk without a corresponding price reduction. The notice would state both quantities and remain for 90 days.

The legislation originated with Rachel Okafor’s Fair Basket Coalition, whose volunteers spent eighteen months recording the weight or volume of 400 common items every month. One in seven had diminished. “Shoppers scrutinize prices but almost never weigh their cereal,” Okafor observes. “A company that trims contents is raising its price without admitting it.” A notice, in her view, merely informs consumers what they are purchasing.

Martin Gagnon, spokesperson for an association of independent grocers, endorses the goal while deploring the method. Manufacturers, not retailers, determine what goes into a box, yet a family-run store with five employees would have to monitor size changes across 8,000 products, paperwork whose cost would ultimately surface in shelf prices. “Besides, tags already display a unit price, such as the cost per 100 grams,” he notes.

Economist Helen Mbeki shares Gagnon’s preference for unit pricing, though not in its current form. Properly done, unit prices would expose shrinkflation permanently, not just for 90 days. “In practice, one tag quotes the price per 100 grams, its neighbour the price per kilogram, both in minuscule type that few shoppers can decipher in a crowded aisle.” She favours mandating a single standard unit and a minimum print size; a temporary notice, she argues, treats the symptom while the underlying confusion persists.

Leclair, a retired bookkeeper on a fixed income, sympathizes with Okafor but doubts she would ever spot a shelf notice. If a manufacturer shrinks a box, she reasons, the box itself should announce it in large letters for as long as that size is sold. “Why should the corner store take the blame?”

Among the amendments before the legislature’s committee is one exempting stores with fewer than ten employees.

Count me among Ms. Okafor’s typical shoppers: I scrutinize prices weekly, yet I only discovered my dish soap had shrunk when a bottle 6. Choose…cost more at the tillhad a warning beside itran out sooner than usualshowed a unit price. Nor would a shelf notice have rescued me; by design it is 7. Choose…printed in tiny typetemporaryoptional for small shopssilent on the old size, and a bottle lasts me four months.

I was surprised to find myself siding with Mr. Gagnon, since the couple who run my corner store are surely 8. Choose…the main culpritstoo small to matterbest placed to track sizesthe wrong target here. In the end, though, Dr. Mbeki’s remedy seems the most practical. If every tag used 9. Choose…the same unit of measureold and new sizesthe manufacturer’s namethe last price-change date, I could compare two bottles at a glance, whether or not either had shrunk. Ms. Leclair’s idea of announcing the change 10. Choose…on the shelf edgeon the label itselfat the checkoutin the coalition’s reports goes further still, and I would gladly support that too.