Forget supersize me. The new zeitgeist is to mini-size. Shrinking chocolate bars, fizzy drinks and ready meals might please New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who sought, abortively, to ban restaurants and cinemas from selling sugary drinks in portions bigger than 16 oz.

But not everyone is happy. Just 3 per cent of Britons reckon it is fine for companies to quietly shrink pack sizes without commensurate price cuts, according to Which?, the consumer watchdog.

“Big name brands are shrinking products by up to a quarter, but the prices aren’t dropping,” Which? says in this month’s issue of its magazine. “We asked the makers of these products why they had shrunk them, and were generally told that in the face of rising costs they chose to shrink products rather than increase prices.”