In France, inflation has fallen now more than a third from a year earlier, but higher food prices have been persistent. A typical basket of food basics that includes items such as pasta and yoghurt is 3 to 5 per cent higher than it was a year ago, after a 16 per cent surge for 2023.

Macron had promised to wrestle food costs down further this year. The government moved up annual price negotiations between suppliers and retailers in February and put pressure on companies to limit increases.

The shrinkflation campaign is the latest weapon. Stores will have to display signs for two months after downsized products are put on their shelves, according to the government decree issued on Friday. The signs will appear near a variety of goods made by food companies, as well as for the supermarket’s private-label brands, from snacks and soda to bags of rice and laundry detergent. Prepackaged foods, like shrink-wrapped deli cold cuts or foods sold in bulk, will be exempt.

Many global consumer goods companies have raised prices by double-digit percentages in the past year, attributing the increases to higher costs of ingredients and labour. Even so, many of those companies have reported expanding profits as they sell fewer items at higher prices.

The issue came to a head in France last year when Carrefour announced that it would no longer sell PepsiCo products because the prices were “unacceptably” high for consumers, escalating a showdown by French retailers to name and shame brands that were not reducing prices as inflation eased.

Loading

As part of its campaign, Carrefour also put up shrinkflation posters next to products like Lipton tea warning shoppers that they were paying a higher price for a product whose volume had shrunk.

France has submitted a proposal to the European Union that would force food retailers throughout Europe to carry out a shrinkflation labelling campaign.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.