Image: Photo by Gustavo Fring: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cheerful-woman-using-electronic-scales-in-supermarket-4173320/
The Consumers’ Association has concluded that manufacturers in the Netherlands have a “new trick to hide price increases” by cutting back on expensive ingredients.
According to the association, expensive ingredients are replaced by cheaper ones while the sales price remains the same or even increases. It looked at the ingredients of more than 600 products in the supermarket and compared them up to and including five years ago.
The composition of more than one in four products had changed. Often it was a small change, but the Consumers’ Association said there were also “major adjustments”.
For example, the fish content of Albert Heijn’s gourmet treats fell from 75% to 55%, the manufacturer of Bertolli liquid reduced the olive oil share from 20% to 7% and Plus now puts 6% of forest fruits in the syrup with forest fruit flavour, where it previously was 19%. . 60% of the changes involved private labels.
The manufacturers mainly give the increased raw material prices as the reason for the adjustment. But, as supermarket Plus claims, the forest fruit lemonade still tastes exactly the same, because the taste is mainly determined by aroma.
Albert Heijn stated that its gourmets have improved because it has a thicker, crispy layer around it. The supermarket is also said to have improved its whipped cream ice cream by adding only 23% whipped cream instead of 32%. The manufacturer of Bertolli liquid uses a similar argument.
