Home Bargains, produce for 2 months now below weight

sarahTT

I am buying almost all our apples from HB, and for at least the last two months now, their basic 1kg packs have been between 880g and 910g (electronic scales which I know are correct within +-5g). I've tested probably 8 to 10 packs (yeah, we eat many apples) and none was even near 1kg. Would it even make sense to call them? Or what else can I do?

Aylesbury_Duck

sarahTT said:

I am buying almost all our apples from HB, and for at least the last two months now, their basic 1kg packs have been between 880g and 910g (electronic scales which I know are correct within +-5g). I've tested probably 8 to 10 packs (yeah, we eat many apples) and none was even near 1kg. Would it even make sense to call them? Or what else can I do?

Speak to the retailer in the first instance.  See what they say, and take it from there.

eskbanker

If you wish to pursue it then you should contact them first, but if not getting anywhere then you could report them to Trading Standards (via CAB):

https://www.gov.uk/weights-measures-and-packaging-the-law/packaged-goods

Sarahspangles

Weights and measures is solidly Trading Standards territory. I wouldn’t alert the retailer.

EssexHebridean

The easiest route would be to start buying your apples from elsewhere I guess- I can see why it's annoying though if that is your retailer of choice for that product, and of course, you're unlikely to be the only one falling foul of this too. 

sarahTT

@EssexHebridean Well, I like that variety and they are still the cheapest, even if I add ~10% to the £1 price tag

However, I'm perfectly willing to take this up w/ trading standards as this is clearly not an oversight or a temp error. What if anything would I need in the way of evidence or proof? I have, as I said, bought around 8/10 packages during the last two months, all around 10% underweight but obviously these are all long gone.

lincroft1710

If you report this to TS via CAB, it will take months for anything to happen, so either buy elsewhere or accept you're still going to be short changed for a while.

cw8825

Is there a reason you started weighing the apples?

the food factory will have a tolerance but very odd that that many are going through underweight. 

As others have said contact the manufacturer not hb 

user1977

Your rights would be limited to returning the items as not corresponding with their description.

eskbanker

sarahTT said:

However, I'm perfectly willing to take this up w/ trading standards as this is clearly not an oversight or a temp error. What if anything would I need in the way of evidence or proof? I have, as I said, bought around 8/10 packages during the last two months, all around 10% underweight but obviously these are all long gone.

If TS show any interest, they'll have their own procedures for sourcing their own evidence, but if you're going to keep buying and weighing them, you might as well take photos - they wouldn't really constitute meaningful evidence as such but might add a bit of, er, weight to your argument....

sarahTT

@cw8825 Well, I know these packs well and somehow I could just feel that they were not a kg... and once I suspected that there was something amiss I started weighing every pack I bought, with all ~10% underweight.

@eskbanker Thanks for that, so I'll just go ahead.