In yet another blow to our regular food shop, Lurpak has just reduced its block of butter from 250g to 200g.
Yep, as the cost of living crisis drags on and food inflation continues to spiral, Arla Foods – the company behind Lurpak – have decided to cut the size of their block of butter rather than hike up the price.
Sainsbury’s sold salted Lurpak at £2.70 for 250g before it was phased out last month. Now, you can only a 200g block of the popular butter at £2.15.
It’s the same price at Tesco too, although it’s currently discounted down to £2 at Morrisons. At Waitrose, meanwhile, the same 200g slightly salted block is being sold at £2.25.
Sellers set the price, but usually on food suppliers’ recommendations.
This seriously frustrating change comes after the entire butter sector saw the price of the dairy product soar by 15% over the last year – and Lurpak went viral for hiking the price of its own beloved butter up significantly.
Writing on Sainsbury’s website, furious shoppers vowed not to “buy Lurpak anymore”, saying it “looks tiny in the butter dish and won’t last very long”.
Another wrote: “This is the only butter that doesn’t seem to have jumped ridiculously in price. Then it arrived and I see that the pack size has shrunk by 50g! Sneaky.”
One Tesco customer also fumed about how this “ridiculous” change was “so, so annoying”, and would affect all of their recipes.
Others just tweeted about how churned up they were:
Why has Lurpak changed in size?
Speaking to The Telegraph, Consumer rights specialist Martyn James pointed out: “The price of Lurpak shocked the nation last year and photos of overpriced butter went viral on social media. So it’s perhaps inevitable that the company opted for shrinkflation to save their reputation.
“But this is so blatant it will have the opposite effect. Cheaper alternatives are available and consumers are now much less brand loyal.”
The VP of marketing at Arla Foods, Danny Micklethwaite, told Sky News in a statement that the company is aware of the cost of living crisis so they wanted to make the price of their foods “more accessible for shoppers” – which is why they reduced the pack sizes.
The VP added: “There are many different factors that affect the price consumers pay in store.
“These are set by the retailers themselves, but we work extremely closely with our retail partners to ensure we deliver tasty, quality dairy at the best possible price for both shoppers and our farmer owners.”
Arla also warned last August that it expected dairy prices to stay high because of the war in Ukraine which has disrupted supplies of fertiliser and animal feed.
It also claimed that consumers were buying less and “trading down” to cheaper products when it came to butters and spreads.
Shrinkflation, where shoppers essentially end up paying the same amount for less, has become more common since the cost of living crisis began and energy prices began to skyrocket.
Companies typically use it to prevent passing higher production and supply costs onto consumers, although this does still mean your money does not go as far.
Food prices overall have risen by 19.1% over the last year, making the entire sector one of the leading charges of consumer inflation altogether.
PM Rishi Sunak even considered asking retailers to agree to a cap on basic goods like bread and milk to tackle overall inflation earlier this month.
Lurpak has been at the forefront of frustration about rising food costs, with the average price of an unsalted butter pack increasing by nearly 20% in the last year.
In July, supermarkets added security tags to packets of 1kg of butter as it climbed to £9 in price.