How I missed this bombshell, I have no idea, but I’m covering it now.

Oreos – which, in the interest of full disclosure, we’ve been boycotting for a couple of years – have apparently been nailed skimping on the stuffing.

Drop your rainbow colored filling say WHUT?! I know, right?

Cracking the cookie caper is on.

…Ransonet, a bottled-water salesman in New Iberia, La., showed his wife, Christine, the offending Oreo. Like others in the box, the twin chocolate wafers were smeared with just a thin coat of creme, far less, he said, than the typical blob he was used to.

The couple thought it was a fluke. This fall, they decided to test Double Stuf Oreos, a variety Shane had never cared for—too much creme. This time, he recognized the cookie immediately.

“Here we go, that’s the regular Oreo,” Ransonet, 47, told his wife.

Ransonet is one of throngs of Oreo fans who have been perturbed in recent years by what some feel could be one of the biggest inflation scandals to hit supermarkets to date: “Double Stuf” Oreos with just a normal amount of creme, and even less in the original-sized versions. Some gripe that the filling no longer reaches the wafers’ edges. Others say the cookies now bear little resemblance to the creme-stuffed images on Oreo’s packaging.

I’ll let this Australian reporter illustrate what everyone’s complaining about. He calls the cookie a “biccie” – who could resist that? I went weak in the knees.

Have you noticed skimpflation creeping in?@9NewsAUS #inflation #shrinkflation pic.twitter.com/yV26g0pjwU

— Chris Kohler (@ChrisKohler) November 15, 2023

Goods are getting more expensive even as there are less of them in almost the same size packaging. The phenomena has become so insidious and wide-spread, it’s spawned huge bitching boards on places like Reddit to compare and bemoan the downsizing and up costing of both old favorites and staples of life.

…On r/shrinkflation, a 100,000-user-strong Reddit forum for consumers aggrieved about all kinds of products, users bemoan the perceived cutback in creme and argue about when it took place.

“Nowadays it’s barely even a sneeze of filling on the cookies.”

“Bought a full pack. EVERY SINGLE ONE had this little cream. I even called my mom to complain about it because I needed to vent it out.” (“Hell yeah, brother, let it out,” came a reply. )

The ones I noticed that really bugged me happened a while ago – boxed cake mixes. They used to run, depending on flavors, between 15.5 and a tad over 16 ounces. Now they’re a little over 13 ounces on average in about the same size box with no discount in price.

Well, what the heck, right? Save a few calories? That’s all well and good until you have a recipe you’ve had for ages that called for the 15+ oz cake mix. Baking is a precision chemistry class thing – you can’t just substitute ingredients or leave significant quantities out of the recipe without jacking something up in the processes that make the magic happen. And that’s what’s going on with these reduced volumes. For instance, there’s a fabulous Paula Deen recipe from probably 25 years ago – Ooey Gooey Butter Cakes – that uses a boxed cake mix combined with a melted stick of butter for the base layer. That’s it.

Now 8oz of melted butter mixed with 16oz of cake mix produces a whole different texture than the same melted stick mixed with almost 1/4 less dry ingredients.

It’s a greasy, dense mess. Ick.

No one realized they’d have to do math to use a favorite recipe thanks to traditional packaging being shriveled.

Even youngsters are ticked off royally about the shrinkage. This TikTok baker is downright scientific about her cake mix umbrage.

I have an older bundt cake cookbook. One of the easier recipes calls for a box of cake mix but also lists the required ounces. A few years ago, I realized I had to start buying 2 boxes to make one cake. IIRC, this is across all mix brands, too. Shrinkflation & collusion.

— Anxious Octopus🐙 (@oroligtoctopus) November 8, 2023

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single packaged good that hasn’t been manipulated in the manufacturer’s favor.

I don't know when the term "shrinkflation" as coined, but I'm thankful for it. I recall trying to explain this idea—with futility—in years past. It's a nearly invisible (because most people won't ever assume the package size/volume/contents have changed) way to hide price…

— Christopher Cuilla (@ChrisCuilla) November 14, 2023

Users on the Reddit board weren’t showing Oreos any mercy, either. While not able to scientifically confirm the actual stuffing reduction, they had the Double Stuf package shrinkage evidence nailed to the wall.

The problem this time around is, as some wise person on X said, it’s not just shrinkflation.

It’s not either inflation or shrinkflation.

It’s BOTH. AT THE SAME TIME.

Items cost 200% more and they give you 50% less.

It’s an unrelenting combination of insult and injury we’re not supposed to be any the wiser to.

They’ve got us coming and going.