Arla Foods butter brand, Lurpak is facing negative customer reactions as it has shrunk the size of a block of butter by 20%.
The Danish brand has cut its 250g packs to 200g across its salted, unsalted and ‘lighter’ block varieties,” the Telegraph reported.
This also comes the average price of a 250g block of butter has risen by 37p in the past year, according to the Office for National Statistics, while food inflation remains in double-digits at 15.4% this month.
At Big 4 grocer’s Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, the new 200g block is available for £2.15.
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“We’re aware that the cost of living crisis has put pressure on shoppers’ available spend, and we want to make our price points more accessible for shoppers, which we believe can be achieved, by reducing our pack sizes,” Arla Foods VP of marketing, Danny Micklethwaite told The Telegraph.
However, shoppers have been left unhappy with the change, with one Tesco customer posting to its website: “We know the price of butter is going up, but changing the size is ridiculous. This means all my recipes will have to be adapted and recalculated.”
An Asda shopper claimed the change was an “unbelievable reduction in quantity,” while another said “250g is the standard size for a block of butter, just put the price up rather than trying to con us with this shrinkflation nonsense.”
Arla Foods is the latest manufacturer to shrink the size of its products, with Hellmann’s mayonnaise jars having been slimmed down from 800g to 600g at Tesco.
In February, standard packs of McVitie’s Digestives were also cut from 400g to 360g and multi-packs of Penguin and Club biscuits were reduced from eight bars to seven.
