People are reporting a decrease in the amount of tuna in their canned products.

Being a data scientist like Adam Williamson takes a unique combination of motivation, technical expertise, and inquisitiveness. Williamson, who is known as the Price Check Guy on TikTok, has noticed something intriguing about the ingredients in some of the most common grocery store items.

According to Williamson, the Woolworths-brand "tuna in oil" product has undergone a curious change in recent years. In 2022, the can used to contain 70% tuna, but now it only contains 65%. This observation is indeed accurate, and it prompted us to ask Woolworths why they made this alteration.

A spokesperson for the company explained that the reduction in tuna was done to enhance the taste of the product, and they assure us that customers have been pleased with the changes. "We regularly review the ingredients used in our own brand products to ensure the best possible taste for our customers," stated the Woolworths spokesperson. "In 2023, after receiving feedback, we improved our tuna range by providing a better ratio of oil to tuna meat. This has been a hit with our customers ever since."

Williamson's data indicated that this practice of decreasing key ingredients in products may be widespread. In a video, he compared the ingredients of a 2022 can of tuna in oil from the Woolworths website to the same product on the current website. The results showed that the 2022 version contained "Skipjack Tuna, Oil, Water, Salt," while the current version contains "Skipjack Tuna, Vegetable Oils, Water, Salt." Williamson also pointed out that the type of oil used has changed from sunflower and olive oil to cheaper vegetable oils. This may be due to supermarkets choosing vegetable oils for their stability in supply chains.

Williamson initially started this project to track the price changes made by major supermarkets on common household items. As his audience grew, more and more people began to comment on "shrinkflation" - a phenomenon where the weight or size of a product decreases while the price remains the same. "I started looking at the history of these changes, and the obvious ones quickly stood out," Williamson shared with 9news.com.au. He mentioned the well-known shrinking chocolate bars as one example. "Then I began to examine the ingredient lists and the percentage of key ingredients," he continued. To make this process more efficient, Williamson created an algorithm that can automatically check how the percentage of key ingredients in products has changed over time. "The algorithm quickly brought to light a number of products that were raising red flags," Williamson explained. "It was saying, hey, hold on, that used to have 70% tuna, and now it's only 65%."

But it's not just chocolate and tuna that have been affected. Williamson also discovered examples of fruit spreads with only 55% of key ingredients, such as strawberry, apricot, and blueberry. In some cases, the key ingredient had decreased to as low as 50%. Microwave meals were also frequently flagged by his algorithm.

Williamson's goal is to make this program available to the public so they can stay informed about shrinkflation at both Woolworths and Coles supermarkets. While some changes to products are obvious, such as weight reductions or price changes, Williamson is particularly interested in cases where the ingredients have been swapped out. "The internet doesn't forget," he stated. "I've been working on creating pipelines to automatically gather this data and constantly monitor these changes because people deserve to know. It's important to have a balance between the retailers and the consumers. We should both be aware of what's being taken out of our products."

According to Williamson, Woolworths sells around 25,000 different products, and Coles sells approximately 20,000. For the average person, it would be a daunting task to keep track of all the changes, but Williamson has a solution. By using the digital archive website, the Wayback Machine, one can access older versions of the supermarkets' websites and easily compare the ingredients of a product. "The internet never forgets," Williamson reiterated. "And that's why I've been working on automating this process so that people have the right to know what's happening with their products."

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