Shrinkflation: New Transparency Rules, but Application Delayed to October 2025

On December 3, the Chamber of Deputies approved the Competition bill “Annual Market and Competition Law 2023” which contains, in the current Article 23, provisions on the so-called Shrinkflation. Article 23 “Provisions on the re-portioning of pre-packaged products” introduces a new Article 15-bis to the Consumer Code, with the aim of regulating consumer information in cases of placing on the market of products which, while maintaining the previous packaging unchanged, have undergone a reduction in nominal quantity and a related increase in price per unit of measurement. Consumer information must be guaranteed for the six months following the placing on the market of the product in question, by placing on the product the wording: “This package contains a product less than X (unit of measurement) compared to the previous quantity”. The new obligations should have been applied starting from 1 April 2025, but Law 21 February 2025, n.15 (the so-called "Mille proroghe 2025"), provides for the postponement of the expected application date by 6 months, from 1 April 2025 to 1 October 2025.