Inverting Shrinkflation

"Wagon Wheels DEFINITELY used to be bigger than this!" 

We've had the conversation, I know we have. Or is it just that your hands used to be smaller? No, I'm pretty sure the wagon wheel shrunk. 

It's a tactic a lot of brands use to keep their headline price low as costs rise - you still buy one pack of something, but that pack gets smaller. Maybe it's Toblerone making the gap between peaks bigger, or Terry's carving a hollow into the segments of their Chocolate Orange but there is a hidden cost to all this saving that I don't think people always see - packaging. 

You see it doesn't cost much difference in packaging and distribution to ship a 157g Chocolate Orange or a 209g Chocolate Orange. so the percentage of what you pay for that is packaging and distribution cost rises. Maybe you only get a Chocolate Orange once a year (Santa... if you're reading this - yes please) so you don't notice so much, but if it is something you buy every week - like coffee - that quickly adds up. 

I've seen a lot of coffee brands migrate to smaller pack sizes as the cost of coffee (and everything else) has risen over the last 5 years. 

Union Hand-Roasted Coffee - 200g

Grumpy Mule - 200g

Ozone Coffee - 220g

"So you're shrinking your packaging then?"

No - quite the opposite.

I firmly believe in offering value for money both for customers and also the environment. Our pack sizes since we opened have been 200g, 500g and 1kg. It takes the same amount of packaging for us to ship 200g as it does to ship 250g. The packaging is essential - we have to have it to protect the coffee, to get it to our customers fresh and tasty and to prevent the risk of cross-contamination during distribution. So we can't avoid using packaging, but we can make that packaging better value for money.

So we're going to move to 250g for our smallest size. 

250g is enough for 5 large cafetières, 14 stunning double espressos or V60s and should last most coffee drinkers a week. Buying weekly is a really good way to keep your coffee fresh (I like to drink mine 2-6 weeks off roast.) 

It means there's 25% more coffee for the same amount of packaging, so we're reducing waste per kilo of coffee we produce. 

"But you'll be increasing prices by 25% too?"

Also no - the price does have to increase a touch, yes, but it's more efficient so we can share that saving

Whilst you'll get 25% extra coffee in your bag, the average price only increases by about 17%, so you're getting a cheaper cost per kilo when you buy 250g bags. And you'll probably buy 10 fewer bags a year too (assuming you buy one a week at the moment.) So over the course of the year you should spend less money. 

You'll start to see the 250g bags appearing from Monday's post-out dates, and on the shelf in Bjorn next week. 

I'd love to hear your feedback about this, and any worries or questions you might have.