Retail: Consumer advocates are finding fewer deceptive packages

Retail: Consumer advocates are finding fewer deceptive packages

retail
Consumer advocates are finding fewer deceptive packages






Same packaging, but suddenly less inside? Consumer advocates have found fewer hidden price increases on supermarket shelves in 2024. But they are particularly clear.

Consumer advocates discovered fewer so-called deceptive packages last year. In 2024, a total of 67 products were affected by hidden price increases, as the Hamburg consumer advice center announced. A year earlier the number of cases was 104. The decline was expected due to weakening inflation.

However, the average price increase for the products recorded was significantly higher. It was 31.5 percent. In the previous year it was 23.5 percent. There were also five very high increases in which the price at least doubled. “We only registered such a drastic price increase once in 2023,” said the consumer advice center.

She has been keeping a list of “deceptive packages” for years. In total there are more than 1000 articles listed there. The list focuses on groceries and drugstore goods. As a reference for calculating price increases, experts usually use the basic price, i.e. the price per kilogram or liter.

Mostly branded products affected

But what are deceptive packages? Some manufacturers therefore reduce the amount of content while keeping the price the same or increasing. Other companies swap high-quality ingredients for lower-cost ones. According to consumer advocates, there are particularly many deceptive packages for luxury foods such as chocolate, cookies and chips. In most cases, branded items are affected.

This year, for example, the consumer advice center particularly criticized the beverage manufacturer Eckes-Granini. The company from Nieder-Olm near Mainz replaced its Granini brand orange juice with an orange nectar in 2024. The juice had a fruit content of 100 percent, the nectar half as much. The reason for the move was, among other things, crop failures and the resulting price increases for orange juice concentrate. For the consumer advice center it is the “deceptive package of the year”.

The company said: “We find it astonishing that the Hamburg consumer advice center denigrates an entire category and describes nectars as “stretched juice.” The composition of nectars is regulated by law. All information is clearly listed and identified on the label.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, consumers had to pay 2.0 percent more for food in December than a year earlier. Higher inflation rates reduce the purchasing power of consumers, who can afford one euro less.

dpa

Source: Stern

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