Everywhere you turn, it seems like another company’s trying to scam you.

“FREE BIG MAC!” And then in the tiniest little letters next to it: “with the purchase of 2 Big Macs.”

Or those videos of people opening chip bags to realize that there couldn’t be more than ten chips in the entire family sized bag!

But @earlypete says there’s an entirely new type of scam food companies are using on us: TrickFlation, or designing products to make us think we’re getting more than we are.

He starts his video with a confusingly enthusiastic warning to all of us customers.

“There’s an exciting new way that you’re being ripped off at the grocery store!”

But before we get to the new way, Pete takes us through the classics.

First he explains shrinkflation, which is shrinking the amount of product you get but keeping the price the same.

“You might have even heard of Skimpflation, where a company keeps the size and the price the same, but switches out those pesky expensive ingredients”

One example of this is cocoa seeds being switched out for… jackfruit seeds? I don’t know how jackfruit tastes, but I do remember them smelling absolutely awful.

But Pete says this Reddit post from @inasimplerrhyme introduces something new.

Trickflation: making the product look bigger and jacking up the prices!

“You see they haven’t reduced the amount of soda, both of these cans are still 12 ounces, but they’ve put that 12 ounces of soda into what looks like a larger can.”

He says the food industry obviously doesn’t think very highly of us, as this is the type of optical illusion that only works on a 6 year old kid!

But the only way this trick actually works is if companies like CocaCola actually pull the old model of can off the shelves so we can’t realize the trick. And Pete says that’s exactly what they did!

“Not only do we have to worry about our products shrinking in size or lowering in quality, we now have to worry about what is indisputably deceptive behavior.”

That would be like selling a family size bag of doritos, only to open it up to realize it’s actually a fun size bag inside of a family size!

Check out his video for yourself!

@earlypete

If it didn’t make me so angry, I would honestly be impressed with the creativity the grocery industry comes up with to rip us off #foodfacts#groceryhaul#exposed

♬ In The Hall Of The Mountain King/Grieg – もつ

TikTok said at this point, we won’t be eating actual food for much longer!

Or this user said companies skip the tricky advertising altogether and just straight up lie on the packaging!

And even this worker at Coke confirmed that this trick was the exact reason for the new design.

And finally, the math shows that not only are they worse for us, they’re worse for the environment, too.

Do better, Coca Cola!

And honestly, everyone else, too.

If you liked that story, check out this one about a delivery driver who gave two weeks notice… so his employer disabled his truck when he was 300 miles from home!