Starting next year, South Korea will require companies to disclose on product packaging information about the old and new quantities of products if they decrease in volume but maintain their price (a reduction in inflation). To make sure firms comply, South Korea is setting up a team of researchers to monitor any fluctuations in product quantities and prices.

The Ministry of Finance will force companies to post warning signs on the packaging about reducing the number of products in the package, writes the Korea Herald.

Inflation in South Korea was 3.7% in September, a number that Romania dreams of, but which is huge for South Korea. Food prices in the East Asian country have remained relatively low for decades, so the 3.7% increase sparked huge anger. Wages are not keeping up with rising prices. The country’s real estate market — the main source of wealth for many South Koreans — has stagnated.

The measure introduced by the government (the phenomenon of shrinkflarion is also present in Romania) is a response to increasingly frequent public reports of practices such as “shrinkflation”, with which companies maintain prices even as they reduce the amount of the product, passing on the increase in production costs to consumers.

After a month-long investigation, the government confirmed that the quantity or size of 37 products of nine types had been reduced without a corresponding drop in price, including cheese, beer and milk, Vienna sausages or dumplings. Another 16 varieties of flavored almonds also declined.

Choi Si-yeon, a 28-year-old office worker, said she was upset when she found out what happened to her favorite wasabi-flavored almonds. There were 20 grams less in each bag, an amount that was seemingly impossible to determine.

According to current legislation, the practice of reducing inflation is not illegal.

The government also plans to strengthen market price monitoring by establishing a new team at the Korea Consumer Agency to increase the number of products subject to price checks from 336 to 500 items.

The agency will work on signing an agreement with large retailers to collect information on the volume of 10,000 items every day and create a joint monitoring system, the ministry reports.