I am absolutely sad when I get a bag of broken chips. And it definitely works you can test it yourself with some ziplock bags. There most likely is some shrinkflation hidden in that air, but the majority of it probably is playing an important part for people like me who love their chips but hate the crumbs.

[–] Quatity_Control@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

There is definitively a point of diminishing returns. Half a bag of air just allows the chips to smash into each other and break. Only enough air to prevent outside forces compressing the chips is fine.

I'm not going to bother to find out when and how often these bags of completely crumbed chips made you sad in your life. They would no doubt be negligible and more related to transport issues than packaging issues.