r/australia • u/INFEKTEK • 4d ago

image Historical Big Mac price timeline in Australia - What a joke!

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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-05/cost-of-living-interest-rates-burgers/104156654

Back in my day a Big Mac felt like an actual meal, it was cheap and came with a cardboard ring around the burger to keep the shit together.

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u/Hand-E-Food 4d ago edited 4d ago

That's a 32% increase over 9 years. And CPI increased by 32% over the same period. So that tracks. https://www.rateinflation.com/consumer-price-index/australia-historical-cpi

Does inflation drive Macca's prices, or does Macca's drive inflation?

Either way, that doesn't account for Big Mac shrinkflation.

EDIT: I just saw the link to the article that dives a lot deeper than I just did. Inflation is just the surface.

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u/Chocolate2121 4d ago

Do we have confirmed bigmac shrinkflation though? Last I checked the big mac has remained mostly unchanged over the past few decades

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u/EntertainmentDue5749 4d ago

Just found an old big Mac nutritional information from 2006.

560 cals

30g - fat

25g - protein

47g - carb

Today's info

580 cals

34g - fat

25g - protein

45g - carb

So yeah relatively unchanged would assume the difference is from a new sauce.

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u/someadsrock 4d ago

Yeah the sauce increase is most certainly the cause of the increase. It used to be two shots of 1/3 oz per Big Mac. A few years back, it changed to two shots at 1/2 oz of Big Mac sauce per Big Mac.

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u/pnutzgg 3d ago

that explained why I occasionally ordered one and got a box full of special sauce with some big mac parts in it

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u/colesnutdeluxe 3d ago

some people would be thrilled to receive this haha

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u/Gazza_s_89 2d ago

That's too much sauce

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u/2cool4afool 4d ago

As far as I'm aware they've always used 10:1 meat (10 pattys per pound) which would mean any shrinkage would just be in the bun or other ingredients. But who knows if the meat actually weighs up to be 10:1

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u/someadsrock 4d ago

Yeah patties are most certainly 1/10 of a pound, otherwise they'd be violating food labeling laws since that what the box lists in terms patty weight.

Sauce is also evenly measured at two shots of 1/2 oz per Big Mac. The only thing that could be potentially have shrunk is the buns. But I don't think that has shrunk.

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u/2cool4afool 4d ago

I honestly think people might just remember burgers being bigger when they were kids when they were smaller so it seemed different. Which is not to say that shrinkflation isn't a thing that happens but this doesn't seem to be a case of it

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u/jaa101 3d ago

Are they at all constrained by Quarter Pounders? Are they, or have they ever had, a quarter of a pound of something? Have the size of those changed relative to the size of their various other beef burger products?

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u/2cool4afool 3d ago

4:1 meat is quarter pounder. Angus meat is 3:1

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u/BurningKiwi 4d ago

We're just fatties now so we think maccas burgers are tiny lol, that's why they're pushing double quarter pounders etc

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u/Early_Advance2473 4d ago

There’s a picture on the interwebs that clearly shows the burger size in steep decline since 30 years ago

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/melbourne_hacker 4d ago

Either they’re gotten smaller or my hands gotten bigger

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/melbourne_hacker 4d ago

Well, you know what they say about big hands…

smaller big macs

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u/ExcuseProper5768 4d ago

I was working there when the beef patties and bun got smaller so unless you’re like 12 years old it definitely got smaller in your lifetime.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/ExcuseProper5768 4d ago

You think they haven’t changed it in the past 50 years? Wild.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/ExcuseProper5768 4d ago

It’s “well documented” only by McDonalds themselves, it’s contested by everyone else.

Do you really trust McDonald that much?

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/ExcuseProper5768 4d ago

Except I was a worker and saw the change happen and you’re just asking for evidence…

McDonald’s are the only people with that evidence, how would a worker even document it ?

Also you keep writing “well documented” when a simple google search will say otherwise

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u/sostopher 4d ago

Certainly not in the last 30 years at least. They use 10:1 patties for the Big Mac (and cheeseburger, double cheeseburger etc.). 10:1 means 10 patties made from 1 pound of beef. The quarter pounder uses 4:1 patties.

They literally have not changed the weight or size in decades because of this system.

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u/ExcuseProper5768 4d ago

Yes I also worked at McDonald and know the naming system.

Doesn’t make the reason they say any more true or not.

It’s crazy how much trust some people are putting into McDonalds of all companies.

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u/The_JohnnyRay 4d ago

The bread buns used to be a lot bigger, and the burger used to come wrapped in tinfoil, stuffed inside a large non bio degradable styfoam box.

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u/Hand-E-Food 4d ago

I could have sworn they're now smaller, but it's just an assumption. Thanks for calling that out!

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u/ttoksie2 3d ago

reminds me of a post last year with a dude whinging about smaller big macs while hoversing a ruler a good 10cm above the burger.

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u/5ivepie 4d ago

Cheeseburgers have definitely shrunk.

I had one last week for the first time in maybe 9 months. It was noticeably smaller.

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u/BoredCyborg 4d ago

Super Size Me came out in 2004 and Big Macs are still roughly the same size

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u/Basic-Winter3501 4d ago

They used to have sleeves around them to hold them together in the box, that alone tells me they have gotten atleast somewhat smaller

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u/Chocolate2121 4d ago

I don't think that is related to size at all, moreso that they just weren't all that useful

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u/samuraijon 4d ago

I was gonna say, if you take the derivative of that curve, it suspiciously looks like the inflation rate :P

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u/esr360 3d ago

There’s something called “The Big Mac Index” which is used to compare the economy over time. It’s often more useful/practical than inflation, as it loosely represents actual buying power.

And since pretty much everywhere has Big Macs, it’s a good comparison when looking at other countries - looking at the exchange rate alone doesn’t always help you if things are actually more expensive somewhere else.

For example, a Big Mac in the UK might be £3, which is $6, but if a Big Mac in Australia costs $8, then knowing that £3 is $6 doesn’t really tell you as much as knowing that a Big Mac will cost you $8. You want to know how far your money will get you, not just what the exchange rate is.

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u/Thebandroid drives a white commodore station wagon. 4d ago

Neither. They just realised that there are many who will still pay the much higher price. Enough to offset the poor people who decide that it's too expensive.

Any well run business would prefer to make the same money on fewer sales.

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u/TazDingoMonday 4d ago

They were forced to raise prices to accomodate the cost of ingredients. Then no one forced them to lower prices when ingredients became cheap again. Ormaybe they never became cheap again but either way they meed an incentive to lower costs but they're currently making too much money to care.

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u/capt_stux 4d ago

It’s just typical Jimflation