If earlier experts scrupulously calculated the rise in prices for food products themselves, now the cost of packaging in which these products are sold is added to such monitoring. It is getting more expensive, and in order not to get deep into the pocket of the buyer, the manufacturers decided not to change the prices for a portion, but to make it a little smaller.
Some chocolates will soon be pulled by 82 grams, instead of the 85 grams that have become familiar lately. We have long forgotten about 100-gram tiles. Yoghurts in their bottles will lose 10 grams, and a pack of pasta, beloved by everyone, will contain 400 grams instead of 450. And so on almost the entire food range.
The reason for the decrease in the product during its packaging is the rise in price of plastic packaging. In processing plants, where bottling and packaging, production costs increase significantly. In order not to continue to raise consumer prices, which there is nowhere to raise, it was decided to switch to smaller packaging and not add a little or not report.
Perhaps we will not even notice such a “body kit”.
– This is far from a new phenomenon in our life, – says the chairman of the Union of Consumers of Russia Petr Shelishch. – We first encountered him back in 2009, then in 2014-2015. A couple of years ago, remember, everyone laughed at the “nine” eggs, when instead of the usual 10 eggs, they put 9 eggs in a package, but at a price of 10. Probably, now you can’t find any drink with a volume of strictly 0.5 liters or 1 liter. Everywhere, if you look closely at the label, 0.95 or 0.45. Now there will be new packaging – 0.93 or 0.92 … It’s just that retail chains do not like to revise supply prices, while manufacturers’ costs are growing, so they get out as best they can. Someone does not top up, someone worsens the quality by simplifying the technology. As a rule, the buyer at the counter rarely looks at the label; he only finds out what and for what price he bought in his kitchen. However, the Federal State Statistics Service must record the increase in prices; it monitors not by packaging, but by kilograms and liters. Unfortunately, the proposal of our Union to have two price tags on the package did not pass: the cost of the goods in this container and its cost in one kilogram or one liter. This is the practice in many countries. This helps to compare which is really cheaper. On the package, the price may be lower, but in it the product may be much less. And in fact, it turns out to be more expensive.
We contacted farmers near Moscow who bottle and package their dairy products in bottles and cups. Until a new rise in the price of plastic has come to them. The head of the peasant farm in Odintsovo, Olga Ivleva, said that “just yesterday” she was brought a large batch of milk bottles at the old prices: half-liter at 5.8 rubles apiece, liter – at 6.6 rubles, two-liter – at 8, 2 rubles.
On average, such a container will rise in price by 5 rubles, this is already together with a cap, which also becomes more expensive, but is cheap: 100 pieces – 52 rubles. The increase in price does not depend on the capacity, but depends on the configuration. Each package is individual: with or without foil, dense and soft, with or without a lock …
So far, she does not know whether to raise the cost of “milk” if the container begins to come at new prices. However, I am sure that she will not have underfilling (instead of a liter of 900 grams).
– Any increase in the price of an ingredient “from the outside” is necessarily reflected in the cost of production, – explains another livestock farmer Natalia Derbeneva, – Previously, a plastic bottle in a liter of milk was 6%, since the beginning of the year already 8%. Add here 5% on profitability from the manufacturer. And the trade margin, if he delivers his products to the store. At least 10% of the milk from the livestock farm will go to buyers more expensive – purely from the peasant.
However, many farmers claim that in the end they are not responsible for the retail price in trade. For the reason that stores, under any noise about a rise in price, immediately lay down their “margin”, 20 percent, or even 30 percent.
Mankind has recently come to the conclusion that plastic packaging threatens the environment almost on the same scale as global warming. Some European countries are switching to biodegradable (not hazardous to nature) packaging or introducing an environmental fee for plastic recycling. In the UK it is £0.05 per item. In Russia, there is also an environmental tax, partly for this reason, plastic products are becoming more expensive in our country.