Shrinkflation Comes to The Mercadona Reusable Shopping Bag.

What is The Most Spanish Souvenir You Can Buy in Spain?

 Is it a bull sculpture? Is it a box of marizipan from Toledo? A bottle of Don Sinon sangría? No, it is the resuseable green shopping bag from Mercadona!

You will find these bags all over Spain. I personally counted over seven bags at the Madrid airport in the US departures area. They are just the perfect size for carrying your groceries, wet laundry  to/from the laundromat, towels and sunscreen at the beach, your child's menagerie of stuffed animals, all that crap you want to bring on the airplane but don't have a suitable bag for. The straps are comfortable to sling over your shoulder. If you don't have a rolling granny shopping cart, the Mercadona reusable shopping bag is the best for toting things home from the store.

HOWEVER, the last time I bought a Mercadona reusable shopping bag, I discoverd that the bags have SHRUNK. I proudly brought home my 2024 Mercadona bag and compared it to my 2022 Mercadona shopping bag and guess what? Mercadona's wonderful reusable shopping bags are are now 2/3 smaller. What in the shrinkflation??

The Peaceful Aisles of Mercadona during Siesta Time

 I have a theory, that Mercadona shrank their bags on purpose to 1) save money in materials and 2) to make people think they are getting the same amount of groceries even though they're spending more euros at the store for less. Seriously. Someone looks at their full shopping bag and their 50 euro receipt and they're like, okay, I guess I got a lot. But if the bag is big, people think, dang, I'm getting played at the grocery store.

Will I stop buying Mercadona shopping bags? No. It's still the best bag. But, it's a heck of a lot smaller.