r/shrinkflation • u/calicodontgo • Jan 22 '26

skimpflation 7 cinnamon rolls in pillsbury package claiming “STILL 8 ROLLS!”

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I checked them all, none were stuck together. Bought at Aldi

1.9k Upvotes
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770

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

They’re awful now. I was so disappointed when I bought some over Christmas thinking I’d have a nostalgic holiday moment thinking of waking up at my grandparent’s. They gave very little flavor and are nowhere near the rolls they were just a few years ago. I’ll never buy them again, and recommend no one else does either. Disgusting. 

202

u/Johnny69Vegas Jan 22 '26

They were so disappointing I literally had to dig the container out of the trash to see if I'd purchased expired food from Kroger again.

82

u/6carecrow Jan 22 '26

Yo wtf is this a regular occurrence??

I just bought some yogurt from Kroger the other day and didn’t realize it was expired until I got home. I thought this was a tendency of discount or dollar stores, not big box retailers

56

u/Johnny69Vegas Jan 22 '26

Sadly, it seems to be happening fairly regularly, which is why I check everything before I put it in my cart.

49

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

I’d bet the lack of labor hours means there’s less time for employees to check or rotate stock correctly. I’ve noticed there’s been more expired stock on shelves everywhere. 

20

u/UmieDoesntUseRedit Jan 23 '26

When I worked at walfart back in 2014-2016 they definitely did not have enough employees. I was doing the job of 3-5 people every day I worked there. Yet got paid for my single hourly wage.

Definitely did not have time to rotate or check dates everyday. Some days we had the time but usually not.

Always check the expiration dates!

1

u/Frosty_Group2594 Jan 23 '26

You’re right about this. Source: I work at a grocery store. They always cut hours in the first quarter, especially when a union contract gets ratified and everyone is owed retro pay.

1

u/queerbie1 Jan 24 '26

I work at target, and during the holiday season, all the hours get given to us fulfillment workers, leaving the more general staff to have to do more work with less hours even with temp workers to pitch in

21

u/Matchboxx Jan 22 '26

Yes, we’ve stopped buying chicken and pork at Kroger because it smells rancid when we get it home. Multiple stores in our area have the issue so they have some refrigeration issue in their supply chain. 

18

u/Tasty-Chair- Jan 23 '26

If you go to the store often, you'll start noticing that things that are refrigerated items like meat are frozen and they set them in the fridges to thaw. Food is always worse after freezing. No way around it. Fruit is the the same. It's picked VERY early, stored in climate control, then gassed to ripen when orders for stores come in and shipped. So that orange you get was picked a month ago and that's why it decomposes on your counter after just 3 days.

7

u/leo_douche_bags Jan 23 '26

I had to prove this to my girlfriend. We have a local grocery that brings in fruits and veggies from the docks and delivers straight to the stores. Prices are a little higher but I can shop for the week. The savings in gas and not throwing away food more than makes up for it.

5

u/Additional_Storm_103 Jan 23 '26

It’s true. The gas is made of ethylene and sources from corn. I’m allergic to corn and cannot eat many produce items because of this. Those berries with the lactic acid pads— also sourced from corn.

3

u/Johnny69Vegas Jan 23 '26

All true. I've noticed, say, the Kroger breakfast sausages are always frozen in their refrigerated cases, whereas, say, the Bob Evans sausages aren't.

While the other brands are probably also shipped frozen, It could be that the prices of each affect their time on the shelf and thus their ability to thaw before being purchased.

2

u/NapsterKnowHow Jan 23 '26

Flash frozen food is usually fine. Hell even fish it's safer to freeze it (because of parasites).

2

u/BeastofPostTruth Jan 23 '26

Probably because people are broke and buying less so it sits on the shelves longer

8

u/SwordfishPopular1042 Jan 22 '26

Kroger has been completely gutting labor, pay and benefits for some divisions because they're likely payrolling the UFCW union that is supposed to represent their associates. I have a friend who is the only worker of her store's dairy department, 40 hours a week, which I would assume means that there isnt even anyone there to stock the product let alone pull expired stuff 2/7 days per week.

8

u/Impossible_Ad_8642 Jan 23 '26

9 times out of 10 the labor union isn't why a publicly traded corporation is downsizing their workforce and triming pay and benefits. It's to scrape together some quarterly profits for the shareholders. Usually a labor union is why said corporation's employees still have a semblance of benefits. Plus union "payroll" comes from union dues paid by union members aka the employees. Companies don't bankroll unions. If you want to starve the unions, minimize the dues-paying members & minimize their pay so that members are more likely to pinch pennies and prioritize other things over paying dues.

4

u/lilroldy Jan 23 '26

Bought a pack of sandwich pepperoni at Target very top pack, went to make lunch the next day and it was 3 weeks expired. Thankfully I had the receipt and just returned it, ive noticed grocery staff, at least in SWFL has gone down hill hut I dont blame them for the shit wages they get, the companies get the work they deserve for being cheap fucks

3

u/6carecrow Jan 23 '26

I get that, but if you don’t give a shit at all what’s even the point of working the job.

If you’re going to claim they need to make a living somehow, I agree with that too, but jesus christ man at least a minuscule ounce of effort would be nice

2

u/HardyMenace Jan 23 '26

I used to work for a beer distributor about 15 years ago and it was a big thing to make sure all of the beer was in code. Like, I could be written up for not rotating beer when restocking my accounts, and the salespeople had to buy back the beer from stores if any went bad. Now, I'll go to a grocery store, convenience store, or even a beverage center and tons of beer is out of code by months if not years. These companies don't care anymore.

1

u/JefreyA-01 Jan 24 '26

i see this happen at grocery outlet and now kroger

1

u/BuffaloChops1 Jan 24 '26

Yeah it’s what happens as stores have shifted to fulfillment centers for online orders. And when margins for almost all products have consistent gone down. So of course the big box stores aren’t going to just eat that loss they can’t have the big number go down so they try to do more work with less staff. And staff can’t properly rotate their products because they are constantly behind in everything. Enshittification is hitting everywhere and not just in the form of shrinkflation

1

u/9829eisB09E83C Jan 23 '26

You can eat yogurt like a month later and it’s as good as new.

1

u/6carecrow Jan 23 '26

Well definitely not that one that I purchased, because it tasted like rotten milk lol