Seeing grocery items go up in price is nothing new, but the way some companies increase their prices today could be considered a bit suss, and a damn nuisance for some people.

I have a particular liking for Smiths Chips, but I got the heeby jeebies sometime ago when I discovered all was not what it seemed with them. You see, Smith chips are one of those things that can vary incredibly in price depending on where you buy them. For this reason, I always kept my eye out for those times where I could buy them at their cheapest. One day back in time, I noticed something different and on further examination I noticed that the contents of the bag had gone down. The bag appeared the same size but what had previously held 200gms of chips, suddenly had 190gms. Since that time, that bag quantity has had further reductions and the latest I saw, it's now 170gms. The prices however still appear to be similar to what they always were. I call this a price rise by stealth. There are many other examples that I could run through, but I won't. Fair to say however, it's a standard practice for many companies now and what makes it even more suss, is they don't seem to change the size of the packaging. In the case of my Smith chips, I'm pretty sure I'm still getting the same size bag, less chips and more air in the bag.

When I see stuff like this going on, I get pretty ticked off, it's the grumpy old man inside me coming out. My wife on the other hand is a much nicer and more tolerant person than me but even she got annoyed recently when we were having guests for dinner. She wanted to impress them so she picked out a couple of recipes from her myriad of recipes, collected over centuries I should mention, or so it seems, but when she got to the supermarket to buy the ingredients she needed, she too discovered that the contents of the products mentioned in the recipes were, in most cases, less than she needed. How frustrating! Keep in mind, these are the type or recipes that most women have in their pantries and typically accumulated over many years of tearing them out of New Idea magazines, Women's Weeklies and so on. It's what women have done for yonks. Problem is, most of those recipes often name products and quote quantities that could be readily purchased at the supermarket. Not any more!

On one hand it's a case of grinning and bearing it, on the other hand it's straight out deception, or stealth as I put it. Sure, it may be some clever marketing strategy designed not to draw shopper's attention to price rises, but I don't like it and I have little respect for companies that choose to do business that way. Sad to say, these companies know full well what they are doing and why, they also know how shoppers like me will kick and buck and grumble, but they also know that at the end of the day, after that initial contempt and spitting chips, most shoppers will settle down, fall into line and take whatever they are given. Bit sad really.