my cheese is underweight!

mo786uk

As I understand all trade scales have to be calbrated and checked, therefore you could take it to another sop and get them to weigh it (i.e a local shop) - you could even take it back to Tesco and use their fruit and veg scales (although that might be dodgy from a point of view of getting it in and out again!)

vikki.f

perhaps we should all start taking our scales to the store and when you get to the checkout weigh the items and if you get something under weight then offer them less money so if you cheese was 5% under and cost £3 then offer them £2.85.

Alternatively work on the mean average and say that my shopping cost £50 and everything bought has weights and has a margin of 3% so i would like to offer you 3% less for the entire bill.

We buy CC Cheese all the time and be interested to see what they say and what they deem the acceptable margin of underweight to be... I cannot imagine the cheese being cut by hand, so there should be no errors,

saying that just had a little weighing session and we are ££'s in with everything being overweight, best was 300g of M&S new potatoes at 338 including the wrapping.

sheerdelight

Yes 6% is the allowance before selling it by the manufacturer is an offence. Your package is borderline.(Assumin your scalke is OK) Trading Standards can weigh it accurately for you to see if it is short by more than the 6% allowance. They may choose to check other stock in the store but will hardly be moved by one block of cheese. They would redirect complaint to packer if in the UK. I say just live with it.

POPPYOSCAR

Why don't they cover this by saying that the weight is approx 300gm for example.

sheerdelight

Virtually all fixed weight goods are packed to the average system. They are usually e marked. On "average" the goods should weigh the nominal quantity. There are other criteria to the weight of individual packs as to how much they can be below the nominal quantity . In practice depends very much on the nature and value of the goods being packed. Sugar can be finely controlled while chicken portions will vary a good deal. With some goods you will find every pack in excess of the nominal weight. With with others a good proportion can be less than the nominal weight. The main aim is that they meet the legal requirements. Generally the greater the value the more the packer is going to get his packs as close to the nominal quantity as possible. after all he doesn't get paid anything extra when they contain more than the nominal weight!

So in practice expect some goods to weigh more than the nominal quantity others to weigh less.

ormus

i got on the scales today. 11st 7lbs.
faulty scales agin.

i should be about 10 stones. ish.

squeaky

Things appear to have changed a little since my days as a production engineer in the food industry but the way things used to work was...

There are two main ways to pack to weight.

One was MinimumWeight. In this case every pack had to be that weight or above.

The other was AverageWeight. This is where the fun starts. There are two variations in weight allowed - t1 and t2...

t1 was 2.5% so we set our machines to pack at +or- 2% to help keep us safe.

t2 was 7% (we set up for 6%)

When doing a packing run we would have the system set up to "batch count" at say 200 items and each batch had to finish up with an overall average weight of the target (or above) and the entire product run also had to meet the target. Batch checking within the run as we did meant that we didn't risk something being wrong and us having, say, a thousand units in a row on the low side even if the entire run was correct.

However, the standards bods accept that with some goods meeting the 2.5% every time without fail is next to impossible - and this was where t2 comes in... on average weight packing you were allowed to have one unit per thousand (I think) which could be wrong by 7%

As I say, the actual figures and allowances may well have changed since my day - but I'd bet that the basics are still much the same.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Jolaaled wrote: »

ok...have now weighed the other...that one comes to 410g.

so, if you had weighed the 410g first you would've been happy and probably not started this thread?

Jolaaled wrote: »

yes...the weight o 380g included the packaging. I've not opened it, as don't want to be accused of eating the shortfall!
Have written to Dairy Crest, who own Cathedral City, and will await their response prior to contacting Trading Standards.

You did say to Dairy Crest about the overweight one as well, oh, and you will of course mention it to Trading Standards.

Methinks, somebody looking for something for nothing.

There was a thread the other day, a woman complaining because the bus she was on was in an accident, and she was held up a bit, 'Oh, but I could've been going to a job interview', but she wasn't.

Chill.

libsmum

OHHH nooooo.... Now you've really started something ! lol I just weighed my Cathedral 600g pack and it's 617g (phew, wipes brow and exhales !!!).

I shall be weighing-a-plenty from now on, just to make sure I get what I pay for. "every little helps "

bingo_bango

When goods are pre packed, they are covered by the Packaged Goods Regs 2006. Squeaky is almost correct in explaining it, but the way it works is this.

Goods are packed to a 'nominal' weight. Let's say its 400 g. A production run is called a 'batch' of goods.

The rules that packers (or importers) need to follow are these.

1) The average weight of goods in the batch should not be less than the nominal weight. So the average of all the packs in the batch should not be less than 400 g.

2) The proportion of packages having a negative error greater than the tolerable negative error (expressed as 3% of the nominal weight for a 400 g package or 12 g) shall not be more than that specified in Schedule 2 to the Regs. These are called 'defective' packages (also known as T1) and in a batch of say 5000 packages, the sample tested would be 125 packs, of which only 7 can be defective. If 8 or more are defective, then the whole batch is rejected. So only 7 out of the 125 are allowed to be between 376 g and 388 g.

3) No package shall have an error greater than twice the tolerable negative error. This means that no package (again from the batch test) shall weigh less than 376 g or the whole batch is rejected. These are known as T2 packages or inadequates.

What this in effect means is that packers can have some packages which are less than the weight declared. But only if they meet the requirements above. It's a criminal offence for them to knowingly sell goods that don't meet these criteria, and most will have stringent QC in place to ensure that they are complying with the reuirements above.

Please note that the figures above relate ONLY to packages of 400g. There are different tolerances for different nominal weights, and also different allowances for different batch sizes. There are also statistical calculations applied to the sampling plan so the example above is a rough guide only, and not absolutely the last word. The criteria applied also only apply to the net weight of the goods, and do not include packaging (which is another whole topic on its own!)

So you might find that some of your packaged products weigh less than the weight declaration, but it only becomes an issue if they are way underweight. If you think that you have one, then you need to contact your local Trading Standards to investigate.

The example OP has cited may be an issue as it is likely that the packaging weighs more than 4 g, which would mean the cheese weighs less than 376 g and is therefore inadequate.