On this page
Shrinkflation is usually described as a factory trick: the chocolate bar gets 10% smaller while the price stays put. But the same illusion plays out every week in grocery flyers, in plain sight, through pack sizes — and the sticker price is the perfect camouflage for it.
Here's what our price database shows right now, across Canadian grocery flyers.
The egg example
| Format | Average flyer price | Price per egg |
|---|---|---|
| 12-pack | $6.46 | $0.54 |
| 18-pack | $5.92 | $0.33 |
Read that again. The 18-pack currently averages less in total than the 12-pack — 50% more eggs for less money. Anyone comparing sticker prices sees "$5.92 vs $6.46, whatever." Anyone comparing price-per-egg sees a 39% difference on one of the most-bought items in the country.
The milk example
| Format | Average flyer price | Price per litre |
|---|---|---|
| 1 L | $3.67 | $3.67 |
| 2 L | $5.99 | $3.00 |
| 4 L | $6.39 | $1.60 |
The 4 L format costs less than a quarter per litre of what the 1 L carton costs. That's not a sale — that's just packaging economics that the shelf makes very easy not to notice.
Why this is the same trick as shrinkflation
Shrinkflation works because humans anchor on the price, not the quantity. A package that quietly drops from 454 g to 400 g at the same price is a ~12% increase you'll never feel at the till. Pack-size pricing works on the same blind spot in reverse: the "expensive" big pack is often the cheapest thing on the shelf, and the "cheap" small pack the most expensive.
In both cases the defence is identical: only trust the per-unit price. Dollars per 100 g, per litre, per egg. Quantity can shrink; a unit can't.
What we do about it
FlyerHawk reads the size on every flyer item it can, computes the per-unit price, and refuses to be fooled on your behalf:
- A "half price!" small pack that's ordinary per-unit doesn't get a top deal rating — we check the per-unit price against its own history before celebrating.
- Sizes are compared like-for-like: a 1 L chocolate milk is scored against other 1 L cartons, never against 4 L jugs.
- When a pack quietly changes size, the per-unit history is what exposes it.
The sticker price is a marketing surface. The unit price is an accounting fact. Shop on facts.
