How 'shrinkflation' is impacting Halloween candy this year
CTV
Trick-or-treaters are set to go door-to-door in Toronto in just a few days, but the size of Halloween candy may scare them.
Trick-or-treaters are set to go door-to-door in Toronto in just a few days, but the size of Halloween candy may scare them.
Toronto-based TikTok creator and founder of Toy Soldier Marketing, Neal Chauhan, has been consistently posting examples of “shrinkflation” to his account for months, racking up about 65 million views for his content exposing manufacturers’ cost-cutting measures.
On Friday, Chauhan shared photos of what was inside some of the fun-sized Halloween candies and chocolate offered in variety boxes, where a bag of peanut M&Ms had just five inside and a Twix bar was two-thirds of its package size.
“It’s the overall size that is kind of shrinking, you can’t really hide it as well with typical chocolate bars,” Chauhan said.
“I just picked up one of those Costco-sized packs of king-sized candy bars, because I want to be that house this Halloween, and I noticed that the Smarties themselves come like half-full, three-quarters full, and the box is just comically bigger than the amount that you actually get.”
Marketing professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, David Soberman, told CTV News Toronto the price of some of the ingredients with Halloween treats could be contributing to smaller sizing or fewer candies per packaged good – which could also make the price more expensive too.
“There has been an increase in the price of sugar, and also in the price of chocolate, which are two of the major ingredients that go in the production of Halloween candies,” Soberman said.
