Woolworths’ change to a core grocery item leaves shoppers doing a double take

Eagle-eyed shoppers have spotted a quiet change on Woolworths shelves that is leaving fans of the fridge staple doing a double take.

The supermarket giant has updated its core 500g home-brand sliced cheese range. While packs previously contained 24 slices, shoppers noticed the new packaging boasts 30 slices.

The catch? The overall weight of the block remains exactly 500g. To squeeze six extra slices out of the same block, the cheese has been cut noticeably thinner.

A quick look at the retailer’s home-brand offerings reveals Tasty, Light Tasty, and Extra Tasty 500g packs have all adopted the 30-slice format.

Across competitor aisles, Coles’ home-brand 500g packs still stand at 24 slices, whereas Aldi’s Westacre 500g sliced cheese already sits at 30 slices per pack.

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Customer feedback or manufacturing shift?

Unlike stealth changes, Woolworths says the move wasn’t about short-changing buyers.

“We recently updated our Woolworths 500g cheese slices to a 30-pack in response to customer feedback,” a spokesperson told nine.com.au.

“We’re focused on continually improving our range to offer our customers the best possible value.”

That feedback reportedly included complaints about inconsistency in slice thickness, which has now been addressed. The Woolworths sliced cheese change now aligns it with other brands in the range, including Bega.

Crucially, the price per pack has remained unchanged. Consumers get more individual slices for sandwiches and toasties without paying more per gram.

Enter ‘sliceflation’

Grocery shoppers are already well-versed in the terminology of supermarket shifts:

• Shrinkflation: Shrinking total product weight while keeping the register price the same.
• Skimpflation: Swapping out premium ingredients for cheaper fillers to cut manufacturing costs.

Where a product keeps its price and total weight the same, but is sliced thinner to boost the piece count, unit-price hawks have dubbed the phenomenon “sliceflation” (or “countflation”).

While Woolworths’ cheese is one of the latest products to undergo this change, many have come before it.

Bread, deli products, snack foods

Major commercial bread brands, including select Tip Top and Helga’s lines, as well as supermarket private-label loaves, have periodically shifted slice counts from standard 18-slice loaves to 20 or 22 thinner slices.

Pre-packaged 100g and 200g shaved and sliced meats such as Primo, D’Orsogna, and store-brand deli tubs frequently feature micro-thin slicing.

Bulk 500g packs of short-cut bacon at Coles and Woolworths have seen variations where rasher counts move from eight to 10 thicker rashers to 12–14 thinner rashers within the same 500g total weight.

Meanwhile, snack foods including Arnott’s Tiny Teddies, muesli bars and mini rice cakes have seen individual packet counts increase while the total net weight of the outer box remains unchanged.