Shrinkflation comes for Passover matzo

There’s a Passover Seder tradition of hiding a piece of matzo, the afikomen, and dispatching kids to try to find it. But these days some adults might feel like they’re getting in on the game, too, when they go to buy the traditional five-pack bundle of Passover matzo and discover that—here come the shpilkes—one of the packs has gone missing.

This year, at least two matzo brands, Manischewitz and Yehuda, introduced bundles of four one-pound packages of matzo, smaller than the five-pound bundles that have been around for decades. This may not register for non-Jews who roll past the kosher aisle, but if you’re on Team Moses, it’s a bitter herb to swallow.

Edgar Dworsky, the consumer advocate and shrinkflation avenger, reported on the development recently on his website Mouse Print, under the catchy (and kvetchy) headline, “Oy vey: Passover matzo packages shrink.”

Cracker jacked: Typically shrinkflation entails brands reducing the size of a single unit of a product, sometimes imperceptibly at first glance, while charging the same or even more for the downsized product.

But here, Dworsky documented, the brands are offering the new four-pound bundles in addition to the five-pounders, with grocers stocking one or the other—or both.

Dworsky, a longtime resident of the Boston area, said Stop & Shop supermarkets there are carrying both sizes from both brands and that inflation is evident:

• While Stop & Shops in his area have charged $4.99 for a five-pack for decades (“perhaps as a loss leader,” he speculated), this year at the time of Dworsky's post they were charging a dollar more, $5.99, for the smaller four-pack.
• As for the five-pound bundles, they were selling for $6.99, a 40% increase over last year.

Kosher pickle: “Passover matzo has been one of the few products that has escaped shrinkflation until now,” Dworsky wrote. “On top of that, some stores are raising prices too, so it is a double whammy for shoppers.”\

In an emailed statement responding to his query, Stop & Shop told Dworsky that it had added the four-count option because customers complained that “they didn’t utilize all of the product in the five-pound bundles” and some would go to waste. As for the price hike, “like other retailers across the country, we have faced increased costs from our kosher suppliers in 2024 so customers may see higher prices on some items.”