Are Stouffer's Meals Getting Smaller? Customer Questions Family Meal Portion Sizes

Shrinkflation has become a concerning issue for shoppers these days, and many are turning to social media to shed light on it. During a recent trip to the grocery store, TikTok user @shaelovve got caught up on the frozen meals aisle after noticing the Stouffer’s cheese lovers lasagna family meal package didn’t quite look the same.

Puzzled by the smaller packaging, @shaelovve took to TikTok to get other users' points of view on the matter. Here’s what fellow TikTok users had to say about Stouffer’s frozen family meal portion sizes and the other products that are being affected by shrinkflation.

If you noticed Stouffer’s family-size meals are smaller than usual, you aren't alone. After posting a video of the packaging of the family-size frozen meal, many viewers agreed it looked much smaller than they remembered. While the package claims to provide four and a half servings, one person clarified in the comments section that the serving size used to be six.

Another user wrote, “I feel like the 'party size' is the old family-size and the now family size is basically a single serving.”

While it's common for companies to reduce the size of a product, especially if the larger size is grappling for sales, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. On the contrary, this is a case of shrinkflation.

Shrinkflation is the term used to describe the process by which products reduce in size or quantity but remain the same price. An example of shrinkflation would be a company selling a 12-ounce box of cereal for $4.95 when it initially sold a 14-ounce box for the same price.

By keeping the price high and reducing the quantity, companies are able to save more, especially during times when inflation is high.

Consumers have been feeling the pinch of shrinkflation for months now. In fact, the term has and continues to trend on TikTok. Addison Jarman (@addison.jarman) was another to point out several food products that have fallen victim to shrinkflation.

In one of Jarman’s videos, she shows off products like El Monterey chicken and cheese taquitos, Pantene Pro-V curl perfection conditioner, and Wheat Thins crackers (family size), all of which have reduced in quantity but remained the same price.

CNBC also shed light on the food products that are getting smaller, including General Mills cereals. Back in August 2022, the company shrunk its family size of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios from 20.1 ounces to 19 ounces, though it didn’t lower the price.

CNBC says customers are paying the same for less product because manufacturers are passing the higher costs of production, labor, and freight onto consumers.