Future SRPs to specify unit cost in measure against ‘shrinkflation’

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that it will start to indicate unit cost in the suggested retail price (SRP) bulletin and launch an artificial-intelligence (AI)-powered price monitor application to guide consumers.

“Because the DTI wants to address consumer concerns with respect to shrinkflation, our strategy is to add a new feature to the SRP bulletin,” Consumer Protection Group Assistant Secretary Amanda F. Nograles said Friday.

“Through this, we will add a third column that will be the unit cost. We will now require the manufacturers to indicate the unit cost so that consumers can easily compare them,” Ms. Nograles said. 

Shrinkflation refers to the practice of holding prices steady while reducing volumes, in effect raising prices.

She said that manufacturers welcomed this compromise because the DTI had initially proposed to address shrinkflation by standardizing product weights or volumes.

The DTI is also trying to fast-track the launch of the e-Presyo application, which will serve as an online guide for consumers to check the prices of products within each area.

“For the E-Presyo app, the information will be crowdsourced, meaning manufacturers, retailers, consumers, and price monitors can input the prices of the products,” she said. — Justine Irish D. Tabile