Skimpflation is hard to spot, but the Berry Chantilly Cake from Whole Foods can help explain

New York (CNN) — Fans of Whole Foods’ iconic Berry Chantilly Cake have been up in arms on social media over the past few weeks. One TikTok user showed a single slice stuffed with compote and with fruit on the side. In the past, the user said, the layers had been filled with fresh fruit and cream.

“It’s now just a little English tea cake,” they said on September 20. “It tastes like raspberry jam-flavored cleaning product.”

In late September, Whole Foods told various media outlets in a statement that it had “aligned the flavor profile, size, packaging and price” of the cake slices to standardize the slight variations sold across its more than 500 stores.

Berry Chantilly fans say they were victims of skimpflation, a member of the shrinkflation and inflation family. But while the latter two might appear more obvious, skimpflation might be harder to spot. It can take the form of more subtle tweaks to ingredients and quality to cut on costs. It might look like reduced services, resulting in customers getting less for their money.

Though food price inflation has moderated substantially over the past year, social media makes it easier for customers to document and notice when they’re getting different products or experiences.

“In the wake of a really severe inflationary period, people are extra sensitive about value for money,” Joseph Balagtas, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, told CNN.

Sometimes, a food company will substitute expensive ingredients with cheaper oils or artificial sweeteners. Often customers won’t notice this unless they compare the ingredient lists, a study from the St. Louis Federal Reserve said.

But sometimes customers do notice.

“Businesses take a risk when switching 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 were quick to catch on, and by Friday, the company announced it had reversed its changes.

“Based on feedback from our customers, we will reintroduce single slices of the Berry Chantilly Cake that are the same as the classic our customers know and love,” a Whole Foods spokesperson told CNN on Friday. The cake slices will be back to their previous version by next week, the company said.

It’s unusual for a manufacturer to back down from a product change, especially on a timeline as quick as Whole Foods, Edgar Dworsky, founder of Consumer World, told CNN.

“Manufacturers virtually never back down. They shrink the product, it stays smaller. They tweak the recipe, and it stays tweaked,” Dworsky said.

Other examples of skimpflation

Skimpflation extends beyond food services. A hotel may cut housekeeping services to save on labor costs while the guest pays the same amount for the room, the study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve noted.

It will take some “sleuthing” for customers to figure out if their favorite products have changed, Dworsky said, and they can compare the nutrition label or ingredient list to see what has changed. Dworsky tracks the changes in the fine print of ingredients on his website mouseprint.org.

Skimpflation is nothing new. When costs jump for ingredients, companies often substitute those ingredients.

One example is replacing cocoa butter in chocolate with palm oil, a significantly cheaper option. Cocoa prices have doubled since the start of the year because droughts have hit West Africa, which produces 70% of the world’s cocoa.

In June, Blommer Chocolate, the largest cocoa processor in North America, said it would sell a cocoa butter substitute using palm kernel and sunflower. But chocolate makers also launched similar substitutes when cocoa butter prices surged in 2014, Reuters reported.

Companies might not always skimp out on premium ingredients solely to be cheap, Balagtas told CNN. Disruptions in the supply chain can mean manufacturers are often left without better options and may not want customers to pay higher 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.”

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