The title of “Deceit Pack of the Year 2023” goes to the Tuc brand Bake Rolls. In an online vote by the Hamburg Consumer Center, the bread chips from manufacturer Mondelez received by far the most votes. Of the more than 21,000 votes cast, around 55 percent were for the Tuc snack. There were a total of five products to choose from: Oreo ice cream, Listerine mouthwash, Aldi chocolate and Katjes sweets were also nominated (see photo gallery).
Since last year, the manufacturer Mondelez has no longer offered the bake rolls under the old 7days brand, but in the Tuc guise. The product is almost unchanged, but is now sold in a significantly smaller package at a higher price. “With this brazen marketing trick, the billion-dollar company Mondelez is leading its customers by the nose and fleecing them using every trick in the book,” says Armin Valet from the Hamburg consumer advice center. He also criticizes the retail sector, which ultimately has sovereignty over the price in the store. Calculated per gram, the hidden price increase for bake rolls is 127 percent, according to consumer advice centers. Mondelez had argued in a statement that it was “a new product in the Tuc range”. The decision was made to “bundle snacking competencies more closely among established brands”.
The Hamburg consumer advice center has been collecting cases of hidden price increases in supermarkets for years. But she has never had as much to do as in 2023. At the end of the year, 104 deceptive packages were on the consumer advocates’ famous list. In 2022 there were 76 and in 2021 there were only 47. Strong inflation and the associated cost pressure coupled with customers’ price sensitivity have apparently made a particularly large number of companies inventive. Consumer advocate Valet is calling for stricter guidelines from politicians to make hidden price increases at the expense of customers more difficult. “Labeling the old and new filling quantities and the percentage reduction on the pack would be the best solution,” says Valet.
Source: Stern
