Between inflation, shrinkflation, and a cost of living crisis that’s cut some big holes in our wallets, it’s clear that our money isn’t going as far as it was a few years ago.
It’s made us more sensitive to getting short-changed, too, and for some people there are question marks over whether McDonald’s is covertly shrinking its products whilst maintaining its prices.
According to Delish, our American cousins have seen many products shrink by as much as 25% in recent years. Pringles are one example, with there being allegedly fewer crisps in each tube than ever before.
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Pringles announced this change back in 2016 for its US customers, so it pre-dates these particularly fraught economic times. Not that any Western economic times have been particularly good since 2008, but that’s a story for another time.
With all this comes heightened suspicion of beloved brands, and McDonald’s is no exception.
Rumours abound that its McNuggets are smaller than they were before, prompting a former corporate chef at McDonald’s to step in.
Mike Haracz, posting on TikTok as @chefmikeharacz, responded to a comment on another of his videos that suggested chicken nuggets in the US are ‘smaller and spongier than before’.
"I know back in my day one of the things that they changed was they removed any artificial flavours, colours and preservatives from the nuggets, but that was like 2017 or 2018,” Chef Mike said in his response.
"I do not have any actual data to confirm that these have changed, but I don't eat a lot of McDonald's these days but my kids love a Happy Meal. When they don't finish their nuggets I will usually have one or two of them.
"To me they seem smaller than I remember, there seems to be a lot more shellings."
‘Shellings’ refers to the space between the meat and the batter.
Chef Mike said he thinks the shellings are more noticeable than in the past and that the nuggets seem thinner to him, but he can’t say for certain.
When approached for comment, a McDonald's UK spokesperson said: "To confirm, there’s been no change in size from a UK perspective". If our friends in the US are facing smaller nuggets, rest assured they haven't reached these shores.
Rachael Davis