The size of a much-loved and filling snack at a well-known burger outlet has raised consternation amongst customers.
A Grill’d customer recently took to Reddit to sound the alarm at the high price of the number of chips in the snack portion of their sweet potato fries.
A picture of approximately 14 sweet potato chips was posted with the caption: “This is what $5.90 worth of sweet potato fries looks like from Grilled (sic) right now.”
They then added: “Is it me or is every business everywhere on the take right now?”
Other customers responded declaring the pint sized portion to be a total rip-off while others calculated the measly cost per chip.
“Grill’d has always been a rip-off.. but this is just taking the piss.”
“That’s 0.42 per chip!”
“I don’t understand the logic of undersized serves. Ingredients here cost a tiny fraction of the running cost of a restaurant. Why go out of your way to make undersized dishes?”
“You would think if there’s one menu item you don’t cheap out on and piss off customers, it’s fries.”
But other customers had a different perspective on the matter encouraging people not to pay the high prices that restaurants charge.
“I feel like we’re at the point now that we know we’re getting less for our money and we all have to decide, for example, am I going to pay $5.90 for sweet potato fries from Grilled? And if you want to pay that price, the post shouldn’t be about the big bad vendor. It should be about the guy agreeing to pay that price. You know you have a choice, right? The vendor says this is the price, this is what you’re going to get for it. But what happens after that is on you.”
Another customer argued that they may be none the wiser on the portion sizes if it was their first time visiting the restaurant.
Last year, Grill’d co-founder and managing director, Simon Crowe, had already alerted Aussies about the pending increase in menu prices from February 2023.
He cited the increase as a result of rising supply chain costs and unprecedented inflationary pressures.
Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald 10 months ago, Crowe was still confident that the burger chain would still attract budget-minded customers who would reduce their spend but still dine in “aspirational and premium” places.
“We obviously don’t want for people to be doing it tougher out there, but in an economic environment that becomes challenging,” Crowe said.
“We see people who decide to tighten their belts a little, migrate from premium casual dining to fresh or fast casual dining, exactly where our brand sits … We gain a net influx of guests coming to us from above because they still want quality and service, but they want more affordability, and we provide all of those.”
The tactic of gradually downsizing products while keeping prices the same is known as “shrinkflation” and is becoming increasingly more common.
Earlier this year an unsuspecting pastry purchaser took to Reddit expressing dismay over the high $9 cost of an undersized sausage roll.
The person posted an image of the tiny meaty treat on a napkin, claiming that they are “really feeling the shrinkflation with this one”.
The post caused a similar reaction on social media with some chiming in that even businesses were being affected by high costs.