Twinings has shrunk its pack sizes by a fifth, as Morrisons has increased prices across some of the tea company’s products.
Many of the brand’s bestselling products, which were available in packs of 100, have been cut down to 80 tea bags per box.
Twinings has said that it lowered the recommended retail price of the new packs to ensure shoppers would not be paying more per bag.
However, while Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s have listed the packs at a lower price, according to reporting by The Telegraph, Morrisons is selling the new and smaller boxes for £5.99, which equates to a rise of 69p.
In comparison, at the time of writing, the same Twinings Earl Grey 80 tea bags were available for £4.80 in leading retailer Tesco.
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“We recently reduced the number of teabags in some of our Black Tea range and therefore we have reduced our manufacturer recommended retail prices so that the cost per bag to the consumer would remain unchanged,” a Twinings spokesperson told The Telegraph.
“Ultimately, we can only recommend retail prices and it is at the discretion of retailers to set the shelf price for the products they sell in their stores.”
A Morrisons spokesperson added: “This is an unprecedented period of inflation and we are working hard to keep prices down and competitive for our customers while maintaining high standards and availability in all our stores.”
While Twinings has lowered the RRP to its smaller packs, in February, a number of biscuit brands reduced packet sizes after being hit by shrinkflation, including McVities’ Digestives and Penguin bars.
Shrinkflation – when a product is reduced in size but the price remains the same – is a retail tactic used by brands to counter soaring production costs.
The change will see standard packs of McVitie’s Digestives cut from 400g to 360g, and multi-packs of Penguin and Club biscuits reduced from eight bars to seven.
