— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

What you see isn’t always what you get. For example, packaging that stays the same as its filling continues to shrink. Suddenly what you’re buying is worth less – but not any cheaper. This subtle vanishing act happening right before our eyes on grocery store shelves is called shrinkflation, where products secretly slim down while the price maintains weight – or, even more brazenly, increases. Most recently, Milka’s Alpenmilch chocolate bar in the brand’s typical purple foil wrapper earned the top prize for this kind of packaging creativity: Deceptive Packaging of the Year 2025.

Austria now wants to counteract this stealthy sales price optimisation, with obligatory labelling from April onwards. Supermarkets and drugstores will be required to inform shoppers for a period of 60 days via notices directly on the shelf if a product’s fill volume decreases, but its packaging size remains the same – and the price doesn’t shrink by a single millicent. Ignoring the mandatory disclosure risks a fine of up to EUR 15,000, though loopholes remain. If the manufacturer itself includes the information on the packaging, or if an increase in price remains below 3%, the shelf can stay silent.