Shoppers noticed a shortage of components in Whole Foods' Berry Chantilly Cake. Swiftly adjusting its strategy.
"On September 20th, they proclaimed, 'It's just a small English tea cake now.' It tastes like raspberry jam-infused cleaning product to me," was their take.
According to reports in various media outlets, Whole Foods announced on September 20th that they had adjusted the flavour profile, size, packaging, and price of their cake slices to maintain consistency across their over 500 stores.
Berry Chantilly enthusiasts claim they've been hit by 'skimpflation,' a cousin of 'shrinkflation' and 'inflation.' While the latter two might be more apparent, skimpflation can be subtler, manifesting in changes to ingredients or service quality to save costs.
Food price inflation has decreased significantly in the past year, but social media makes it easier for customers to notice when they're receiving different products or services.
"With the recent period of high inflation, customers are extra sensitive about value for money," Joseph Balagtas, agricultural economics professor at Purdue University, told CNN.
A food company might swap expensive ingredients for cheaper alternatives, like substituting oil or artificial sweeteners. Many customers wouldn't notice unless they check the ingredient list, a study from the St. Louis Federal Reserve suggested.
But some customers do notice. "Businesses take a risk when they switch a formula to use cheaper ingredients. If the change is noticeable to consumers and they don't like the change in taste, they may stop buying the product," the St. Louis Federal Reserve said.
Whole Foods customers caught on quickly, and by Friday, the company announced it would revert to its original Berry Chantilly Cake version. "Based on customer feedback, we will reintroduce single slices of the Berry Chantilly Cake that are the same as the classic our customers love," a Whole Foods spokesperson told CNN on Friday. The change would be effective by the following week, the company said.
It's uncommon for a manufacturer to reverse a product change, especially as quickly as Whole Foods did, Edgar Dworsky, founder of Consumer World, told CNN. "Manufacturers virtually never back down. They shrink the product, and it stays smaller. They tweak the recipe, and it stays tweaked," Dworsky said.
Skimpflation isn't confined to food services. For example, a hotel may cut back on housekeeping services to save on labor costs while charging the same room price, the study from the St. Louis Federal Reserve noted.
Customers might need to investigate to find out if their favourite products have changed. They can compare nutrition labels or ingredient lists to see what has changed. Dworsky keeps track of ingredient changes on his website, mouseprint.org.
Skimpflation isn't a new practice. When ingredient costs rise, companies often substitute those ingredients. For instance, replacing cocoa butter in chocolate with palm oil, a cheaper alternative, has become common due to recent cocoa price increases.
In June, Blommer Chocolate, the largest cocoa processor in North America, announced they would sell a cocoa butter substitute using palm kernel and sunflower. However, chocolate makers also introduced similar substitutes when cocoa butter prices surged in 2014, Reuters reported.
Manufacturers might not skimp on premium ingredients to be cheap, Balagtas told CNN. Sometimes, supply chain disruptions force manufacturers to use cheaper alternatives to avoid increasing prices.
"The alternative would be, 'Well, I can pass that on to consumers in the form of higher prices,'" Balagtas said. "Is that better for consumers? I'm not sure."
The food price inflation decrease might have led Whole Foods to consider adjusting the ingredients of their Berry Chantilly Cake to save costs, which could be seen as a form of skimpflation in the business world. If Whole Foods had continued with the changes, they might have risked losing customers who valued the original cake's taste and quality.
