The deterioration of product quality and/or quantity is always a feature of inflation. When the central government debases the currency, making it worth less, producers respond by exchanging a lower quality/quantity of good for it. The alternative is for producers to push up prices, but consumers don’t like that very much.

Business Day reports this week that

“Rising food inflation and the soaring cost of manufacturing goods has forced producers to become innovative to retain their market share and many are responding to consumer price sensitivity by reducing pack sizes, Gareth Pearson, the CEO of research firm BMI Research, said yesterday.”

A weak Rand policy is an anti-poor and product debasement policy (see here and here). It cannot ever lead to prosperity, and instead makes us all poorer.