54 Comments

1. 

   @Dave: yes, and Kilby’s comment actually leads credence to that, if they are doing it in Germany too, where thanks to the metric system is is really just a very minor annoyance. I have a Lidl and and Aldi within 500 meters of each other, and they actively compete against each other, such that their prices are usually within one cent of each other, and often cheaper than the other Aldi near me which does not have a Lidl next to it. So this action, which I had been attributing to incompetence, seemed suspiciously more and more like malice — it makes it harder to not only compare items within the store, but also between the two stores if the competing items aren’t packaged quite the same.

2. 

   Germany was recently forced to relax one significant bit of consumer protection due to EU regulations: packaging conformity. Previously, manufacturers were required to produce their products in standard amounts (butter in 250g bricks, cream in 200g containers, etc.) These “standard” sizes are still prevalent (especially for items that would require re-engineering the packaging equipment), but in many cases, manufacturers are abusing this freedom to hide price increases behind reduced amounts (such as with chips and other snack foods, for which the “weighing” equipment is easy to re-program).

3. 

   in many cases, manufacturers are abusing this freedom to hide price increases behind reduced amounts

   Wow. Certainly never heard of that in the US. And definitely we did not invent some cutesy phrase like “shrinkflation” to describe it.

4. 

   Wait, the EU forcing Germany to change something?? Isn’t the EU just the curtain behind which Germany operates, mostly to force Britain to dance to its tune?? Was that bus lying to me???

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