Trick-or-treaters are set to go door-to-door in Toronto in just a few days, but the size of Halloween candy may scare them.
Toronto-based TikTok creator and founder of Toy Soldier Marketing, Neal Chauhan, has been consistently posting examples of “shrinkflation” to his account for months, racking up about 65 million views for his content exposing manufacturers’ cost-cutting measures.
On Friday, Chauhan shared photos of what was inside some of the fun-sized Halloween candies and chocolate offered in variety boxes, where a bag of peanut M&Ms had just five inside and a Twix bar was two-thirds of its package size.
“It’s the overall size that is kind of shrinking, you can’t really hide it as well with typical chocolate bars,” Chauhan said.
“I just picked up one of those Costco-sized packs of king-sized candy bars, because I want to be that house this Halloween, and I noticed that the Smarties themselves come like half-full, three-quarters full, and the box is just comically bigger than the amount that you actually get.”
Marketing professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, David Soberman, told CTV News Toronto the price of some of the ingredients with Halloween treats could be contributing to smaller sizing or fewer candies per packaged good – which could also make the price more expensive too.
“There has been an increase in the price of sugar, and also in the price of chocolate, which are two of the major ingredients that go in the production of Halloween candies,” Soberman said.
As of October, the retail price for sugar in Canada ranges between $1.35 and $3.10 per kilogram.
Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, told CTVNews.ca the prices of sugar are at the highest they have been in 12 years, since 2011, while cocoa prices are at a 44-year high. Droughts, pests and broader market forces are contributing factors to these inflated prices, Charlebois said.
Soberman pointed to the recent strike action between Rogers Sugar at its Vancouver refinery as a potential driver for the increase in prices, since it is a major sugar manufacturer in the country.
“The other thing is that all the products that we have in the grocery store are subject to inflationary pressure, because distribution is more expensive and so are salaries,” Soberman said.
“We just had a big strike at Metro that ended (in August) and there was a substantial increase in the salaries that the workers are getting, I mean, for obvious reasons, they have to live too, but what this all means is that contributes to the increase in price of the products that are sold in the store.”
The average Canadian household will spend $25 to $40 on Halloween candy alone, according to Charlebois’ recent Retail Insider op-ed.
Soberman says the amount households will buy for Halloween candies to dole out this year, will also depend on when they buy it, where they purchase it from, and how many children they anticipate will be at their front doors.
“I think a lot of it is based on people estimating how many kids will come by and also … people often feel a bit cheap, like if they only give one candy, so they often give one of this, and one of that,” Soberman said. “That’s, I think when you look at the prices of these things, that’s where I think the sort of estimate … comes from.”
With files from Tara de Boer
