The Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency has issued a compliance directive to businesses operating across Lagos State, ordering them to notify consumers and the agency in advance of any changes to product specifications, ingredients, weights, volumes, pricing, and face sanctions including fines, product recalls, and possible licence suspension.
The directive, published this week, targets a practice the agency has identified as widespread: companies quietly reducing product quality or quantity while maintaining pricing, without informing buyers.
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What the directive requires
LASCOPA’s directive is grounded in the Lagos State Consumer Protection Law 2020, which obligates businesses to provide consumers with accurate, transparent, and complete information about the goods and services they sell. Under the new compliance requirement, any business that intends to make a material change to a product — whether in formulation, weight, volume, ingredients, or retail price — must notify LASCOPA and disclose the change clearly to consumers before the modified product reaches the market.
The agency said it had received a growing volume of consumer complaints about what has become known in the market as shrinkflation — the practice of reducing the size, weight, or quantity of a product while keeping its price constant or even increasing it, in a way that is not clearly communicated to buyers. Packaged foods, personal care products, household goods, and consumer staples have been the most frequently cited categories in the complaints received.
LASCOPA Director-General Afolabi Solebo described the directive as a proactive consumer protection measure designed to ensure that Lagos residents are not misled by subtle product changes that erode the value of their purchases. He noted that consumer trust is foundational to a functioning marketplace — and that businesses which undermine that trust through opaque product modifications are not only harming individual consumers but weakening confidence in the broader commercial environment.
Reducing a product from 500 grams to 450 grams while keeping the same packaging and price is not a business decision that affects only the buyer. It is a market transparency issue — and in an inflationary environment where consumers are already stretched, it carries a real and measurable impact on household welfare.
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Why this matters for businesses and SMEs
The directive applies across all categories of businesses selling consumer goods in Lagos, from large manufacturers and distributors to small retailers and market traders. For SMEs in the retail, food processing, and consumer goods segments, the requirement creates both a compliance obligation and a commercial discipline — forcing businesses to make product change decisions transparently rather than using opaque reformulation as a margin management tool.
The agency has also signalled that LASCOPA inspectors will be deployed across markets and retail outlets to monitor compliance, with businesses found to have made undisclosed product changes subject to escalating penalties. Repeat offenders face referral to the Lagos State Ministry of Commerce for licence review.
For consumers, the directive provides a formal mechanism to report suspected shrinkflation through LASCOPA’s complaints channels — and a regulatory commitment that such reports will trigger investigation and enforcement action rather than being left unaddressed.
An economy where consumers can trust that what is written on a product label accurately reflects what is inside the package is a more efficient economy. Every instance of undisclosed shrinkflation is a small transfer from a consumer who did not consent to it to a business that did not disclose it — and regulators stepping in to stop that transfer are doing exactly what consumer protection agencies exist to do.
