The finance ministry said Wednesday the government will push to make it mandatory for companies to put shrinkflation warning signs on their products if they reduce packet contents without a price fall to match.
The measure is in response to growing public complaints about shrinkflation practices, where companies downsize their products while keeping prices unchanged without any notice, shifting a rise in production costs to consumers amid high inflation.
After a monthlong investigation, the government confirmed that the quantity or size of 37 products of nine kinds has gotten smaller without a corresponding price decline, including cheese, beer and milk.
During an emergency economic ministers' meeting, the government announced a decision to push for revising related regulations to require companies to mark changes of a unit price of a product on its package or their websites.
The antitrust regulator Fair Trade Commission plans to have companies notify consumers of information on changing quantity, size or ingredients of daily necessities, and take punitive measures for non-compliance.
Under the current law, shrinkflation practices are not illegal.
The government also plans to have retailers put signs inside their stores about products that have gotten smaller, and add more items to its list of products subject to marking the unit price on packages.
"Companies have due responsibility for providing exact information on products to consumers sincerely," Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said during the meeting.
"The government will make every effort to eradicate companies' deceptive practices. We will revise related regulations as swiftly as possible and closely monitor their implementation," he added.
The government also plans to beef up the monitoring of market prices by setting up a new team under the Korea Consumer Agency so as to expand the number of products subject to price checking from the current 336 to around 500 items.
The agency will push to sign an agreement with major retailers to collect information on the quantities of 10,000 everyday items and establish a joint monitoring system, according to the ministry.