r/mildlyinfuriating • u/thatwhinypeasant • 16h ago
I'm slightly vexed This bag was supposed to be 1kg of icing sugar and it wasn’t even 700g
Unopened obviously! I checked the batteries, used a different bowl, zeroed it again, tested it with a 1lb block of butter. Nope, cheated out of 300g and I needed 900g for the recipe. I had a bit leftover from my last bag which would have been enough of a buffer but now I have to go to buy more 😩
Since I’m getting these questions a lot:
- The brand is Roger’s Sugar, I’m in Alberta, Canada
- I realize kitchen scales are not extremely accurate but I always make sure that it is working correctly - if I tare it and then press lightly on the scale, or push it and it doesn’t go back to zero, then I know it’s not working and I’ll rewipe the counter and the bottom of the scale, check batteries, etc. I also first measured in the bowl of my kitchen aid mixer but then switched to the blue bowl pictured to double check. I know exactly how much the blue bowl weighs, and the weight has been consistent over multiple kitchen scales. The bowl measured correctly and then I rated it and poured the sugar in, if the tare was off then after I poured the icing sugar in and took the bowl+icing sugar off the scale, the weight of the bowl would have shifted. I am very careful about making sure the scale is accurately measuring before I start mixing things, especially for baking things will be fucked up if the weights are off.
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u/PetulantPersimmon 15h ago
I know that brand of icing sugar; it's the same one I buy. Report it as underweight to CFIA. Keep the package!
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u/Lethbridgemark 15h ago
I don't think I've ever seen another brand in stores tbh
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u/luna_lovebaddy 15h ago
There's also Redpath, but I find it doesn't give as good of results. Maybe more starches..
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u/ecclectic 11h ago
Redpath is such garbage. Their brown sugar is horrible too.
As much as Lantic is a shit corporation, their employees make good product.
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u/Wordnerdette999 14h ago
Thank you foe sharing this! I had no idea.
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u/PetulantPersimmon 13h ago
Always happy to better equip people for tattling on our capitalist overlords. :D
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u/No_Control8389 16h ago
That feels like theft. They sold you 1000g and kept ~350g
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 16h ago
It is theft. One of the oldest forms.
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u/I_Love_Knotting 15h ago
Funfact: This is where the „Baker‘s dozen“ comes from
Due to how critical flour theft was seen bakers would put an extra loaf with each dozen to make sure they don‘t accidentally underdeliver.
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u/MadAsTheHatters 15h ago
I always assumed they aimed to make an extra in case one burned but that's much more interesting, thanks for sharing! ♥️
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u/Sleepykitti 15h ago
Selling underweight product as a baker used to be a death sentence crime, they very badly wanted to be sure
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u/Lumegator 15h ago
Bakers overall were so heavily regulated and taxed, it was not a good career at all, though I guess there weren't really many good careers.
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u/Kentust 14h ago
Owning land was the best career around, and it was a hard industry to break into as an outsider.
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u/discord537 14h ago
Was? Still is.
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u/Kentust 13h ago
Used to be you had to own land with people on it. Now youve gotta have land with improvements on it. Agricultural land isn't what it used to be.(Now the serfs are seasonal migrants or eligible for welfare so you don't have to feed them year round or at all!) But it still beats punching a clock.
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u/I_Love_Knotting 13h ago
Owning land was pretty much impossible if you weren’t blue blooded.
For „normal“ people owning the local mill was probably among the best professions you could have (financially)
As you own the mill, everyone that has grain they want to sell, needs your service. This means essentially the entire area is dependent on your services to make flour for the bread they eat. It‘s the most steady customer base you can find.
best professions financially since getting rich off of the daily needs of others is seen as anything but lovable
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u/AwarenessOk2359 11h ago
In reality the mill owner was usually despised because there's no good way to verify that the flour matches the grain input and everyone suspects the mill is cheating them.
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u/systemhost 10h ago
That's where the term "milling around" came from. Out of distrust, farmers wouldn't leave their grain alone with the miller out of fear they'd get cheated.
But they also couldn't make their suspicions outright known to the mill out of fear of being cut off from their services.
So they "milled about", lingering around seemingly aimlessly to try and keep an eye on their grain and ensure no grain was swapped or shorted.
Source: My own fiction.
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u/beaverpoo77 12h ago
They were heavily regulated because they were putting fucking sawdust and chalk in the bread.
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u/AnalNuts 11h ago
Behind the bastards podcast has an episode on pre-fda food industry. Sawdust was the least worst of it lmao it was soooo bad
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u/Chaost 12h ago
I mean, they were so heavily regulated because they kept cheating and poisoning their townfolk.
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u/Lumegator 12h ago
Yeah, regulating food production is completely reasonable, but individual bakers bore the cost quite poorly. In the modern day, most food production is handled by orgs with much greater profitability & administrative capacity. And then... there's restaraunts which are back to regularly poisoning people in some places. Oh well.
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u/zaevilbunny38 12h ago
That's not true the Bakers Guild was one of the oldest and most powerful .Bakers had access to food when people didn't and they made a lot of money. They were established middle class professionals. The Bakers Dozen was enforced was to show royal magnanimity, that the ruler cared that his subjects, similar to the royal mint, it was a high office that needed to be above reproach
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u/TheRealImhotep96 15h ago
I'd always heard the 13th was the test loaf that would be broken open to check that it wasn't raw
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u/Moonshine_Brew 15h ago
It's actually most likely from medieval england as there were laws that related the price of bread to the price of the wheat used to make it. And if you got caught overprizing undersized loafs of bread you could get fined, whipped or even executed.
But as it was really difficult to always make identical loafs of bread and nobody wanted to get a surprise flogging, they added in an extra loaf, just to be save. There are actually even records of bakers giving 14 loafs as a bakers dozens.
Now could there be a different reason for it to be 13? Yes. But this one is supported by the fact, that these old laws about selling bread actually did exist.
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u/Odd_Dragonfruit_2662 15h ago
What half baked baker can’t tell his loaf isn’t raw without tearing it in half like an ape?
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u/I_Love_Knotting 13h ago
How can you tell a half baked baker from a fully baked baker without tearing them both apart
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u/TheRealImhotep96 14h ago
One who has no toothpick
I'm from the days where we could either look it up in an encyclopedia, or just live with the misinformation our half drunk aunt gave us one time when we were 8 lmao
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u/Outside-Resource-113 15h ago
Mainly because undercutting bread was illegal in those times
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u/hiddenrealism 15h ago edited 6h ago
I remember reading unscrupulous bakers would put random shit into their loaves to make them feel heartier than they really were.
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u/Aardvark_Man 14h ago
Working as a baker, even now we have to over provide.
If I'm 1 gram under I can get in strife. I can be a good amount over on a cut before anyone pays attention.17
u/Formal-Ad-7615 14h ago
Also fun fact, this is why we have rippled rims on quarters. People used to file off the edges and collect shavings, spending the coin at full value.
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u/raven00x 12h ago
Important to add that this was a Napoleonic thing where the problem of undersized loaves was so prevalent that Napoleon decreed harsh penalties for bakers committing this kind of fraud, to the point where it was preferable to give free products (ie 13 loaves for the price of 12) to ensure minimums were met rather than risk prison or worse.
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u/Reputation-Final 12h ago
It is theft. Its a contract. I pay x amount for x amount of this product.
Do you think they would accept you paying 30% less with no agreement?
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u/bunker_man 11h ago
It doesn't "feel like." It just is theft. If it was like 950, you could argue its ambiguous, but this is too overt.
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u/youtalkingtoyou 14h ago
Once upon a time bakers would lose a hand for pulling this shit. It’s why they started tossing in an extra loaf for good measure, giving us thirteen for a baker’s dozen. *Not advocating violence, just sharing historical information so don’t ban me for fucks sake.
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u/KhausTO 14h ago
you have an excellent point. The reason most of these problems have started coming back IS because there is no punishments for it, or in the cases that they are punished, it's so negligible that its just a cost of doing business.
If the CEO would lose a hand over something like this (Either metaphorically,... or not) the problem would go back to being solved really quick.
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u/Blazzah 12h ago
In China they executed a CEO over contaminated infant formula. They were adding plastic to trick the protein content tests so they could skimp on legit ingredients. An extreme case, but what else do you do with a guy who okay'd that knowing babies would suffer and die? In the U.S. for the most part we're just being slowly poisoned, so it's hard to point fingers at a specific company or person when multiple (almost all) are contributing to our negative health outcomes. Though it is occasionally obvious, like how Taco Bell is currently in the shit (pun intended).
Food tampering in general is taken very seriously in the U.S. too, like those gnarly charges the 'ice cream lickers' got. Unfortunately, the corporations just get fines lower than the profit they made from the illegal activity, and a forced recall that's likely covered by recall insurance and is likely a tax deductible loss. Messing with food should have consequences for companies that actually hurt them, heavier than those for individuals, and ideally for the worst offenses a ban from the industry for individuals at the critical decision points.
I used to work as a food safety program manager. We put a lot of work into making sure food with 'approved/GRAS' (poison) ingredients doesn't come with pathogens or unintentional contaminants like metal shavings. At least where I was at we used natural ingredients only and kept it simple, but at the majority of large manufacturers/processors the job is essentially spraying lysol on dog shit that's been heated to 165°F 🤷♂️
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u/Tyr_13 9h ago
On a closely related note, the DoJ in the US just blocked a criminal investigation into the baby formula plant that killed many a few years ago.
No honor in maga.
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u/Blazzah 4h ago
Woooow 🤦♂️
Meanwhile the organic, regenerative goat dairy I work for is having a hell of a time getting our formula passed by the FDA. The rules are set up for cattle, which is literally and figuratively a whole different animal. And they're geared for much larger producers, which is another way better options like ours get edged out.
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u/Feeling2Leafy 9h ago
I have a note to make... I have been following the recent cyclosporiasis outbreak, and I think blaming the illness on Taco Bell's greed is an oversimplification. First, outbreaks like this come from the produce supplier, not the restaurant chain itself. Second, Taco Bell voluntarily removed suspect produce from its tacos. Therefore, it is unlikely they knowingly sold customers contaminated food for profit.
Currently, the exact source of the outbreak is unknown. The most likely supplier of the contaminated lettuce, Taylor Farms, is still under investigation. It's not confirmed whether the outbreak was caused by negligence.
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u/ContentCantaloupe992 16h ago
Now this is at least mildly infuriating.
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u/Inside-Example-7010 14h ago
They must have learned it from my old weed dealer. Im not sure if it was the tolerance but 2g started to look more like 2j the more i bought it.
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u/lilshortyy420 11h ago
This is why I always brought a scale lol if I’m spending a ton of money I’m getting every crumb
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u/Acheloma 10h ago
Back in those days for me I guess I just had good guys? They'd always drop it on the scale in front of me before handing it over. The first few times I double checked at home, but it was always dead on or a bit over
Is this is the woman privilege I've been hearing about lol
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u/lilshortyy420 10h ago
Eventually I ended up finding a solid plug that would do that too lol also a female. I will say, we eventually lived together and he never was weird ever thankfully.
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u/Loritrudo 15h ago
😡 They never expect you to actually weigh it!!
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u/InvidiousPlay 13h ago
People famously use ingredients like this for baking all the time so I think it more likely someone fucked up, because they couldn't possibly expect to get away with this as a policy.
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u/taxiviolence 5h ago
What is the customer going to do? People have been complaining about this for ages and nothing happens. Many stores don't have brand options for these things so you buy 2 of their product to fill your need instead of 1. I wouldn't be sure it's not a policy.
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u/SweatyToothlessOgre 13h ago
Fun fact: If you buy a 40 pack of Keurig cups of Starbucks from amazon, it only comes with 39.
Happened to me 3 times. Put up a review to complain, they removed it.
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u/potheadmed 8h ago
You're buying a product of 3 wasteful garbage companies at once. It's bullshit that they lie and have shit product standards, but you're supporting them by reordering over and over.
People might come at me for this opinion, but it's really not hard to not drink that swill.
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u/OddConsideration8625 16h ago
Contact your states weights & measures. If they’re only giving 65% of the stated weight that is a major issue. They will go after them hard. I’d also contact the company and demand answers & a resolution from them
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u/JonnyBravoII 15h ago
The weight is in kilograms so ……….
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u/wreckingrocc 15h ago
So your province's weights and measures
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u/Cold5512 15h ago edited 15h ago
Are American products measured solely in Imperial? I thought food labeling would be mixed with a metric bias, even in the states.
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u/RunLow5726 15h ago
Pretty much everything in my kitchen has both metric and standard printed on it.
ESPECIALLY baking stuff. Hell some of my baking stuff doesn't even have standard. Because baking is done in metric. Pretty much across the board.
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u/MatiasGonzalo-Duarte 15h ago
I've noticed enthusiast/pro baking recipes use metric (weight mostly) but casual home ones just use imperial volumetric measures (cups/teaspoons/tablespoons)
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u/RunLow5726 15h ago
You're not wrong but a kitchen scale is $14 for a halfway decent-ish one (one that'll be accurate, and work for a long time. Might not be the fanciest guy)
And compression plays a dangerous game when using cups to fill.
I certainly wouldn't call myself a baking pro, and I even feel like enthusiast would be going too far.
But weighing, I would argue, is the RIGHT way to do it.
Alton Brown taught me this LOL
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u/MatiasGonzalo-Duarte 15h ago
Oh no doubt. But the average home probably buys more Betty Crocker pre-packaged mixes than anything... Watching Alton Brown and baking from scratch already puts you a step ahead.
Not that I want to shit on people that use pre-made mixes. People's lives and priorities are different and not everyone has time to or cares to learn to bake.
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u/Spiritual-Pear-1349 15h ago
The US is officially metric on paper, but they stopped implementing it halfway through and never finished the implementation.
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u/Inverted-Rockets 13h ago
Worse, we made it “voluntary”. So now it’s some combination of both depending on context and the amount being measured, which is so fun for non-Americans.
You can be buying a 2L bottle of soda and a 12oz bag of chips at the store while concealed carrying a 9mm, only to put them back because you remember you’re trying to lose those 5 lbs. It’s chaos.
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u/Danloeser 15h ago
We don't use Imperial at all, we use the US customary system. Most of it is the same, but volumes are all different. An imperial pint is about 21% bigger than a US pint.
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u/dramallamadog87 15h ago
As a factory worker, we're told to allow +10g to the weight but it can not go below the correct weight. The fuck is this shit???
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u/devinsheppy 11h ago
they probably tell you the correct weight is 30% lower than the advertised package xD
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u/dramallamadog87 11h ago
Somehow my cheap ass factory doesn't. Package says 420g, we allow up to 430g and lowest we allow but shouldn't is 419g.
I also just noticed you were joking. I'm kinda shocked my cheap ass factoey doesn't do that to cut back on powder usage to save money
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u/Future-Pollution-266 15h ago
Are you Canadian? I’ve always called it icing sugar too but my American boyfriend has apparently never heard the term before!
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u/Lethbridgemark 15h ago
I think Americans call it powdered sugar
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 15h ago
Also confectioners' sugar
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u/mister_peeberz 12h ago
Great for dusting on huckleberries, if they are too tart. Once you've had fresh, you'll never go back to canned
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u/Future-Pollution-266 15h ago
Yes you are correct! Does the rest of the world say icing sugar? Or is that a Canadian thing?
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u/InvidiousPlay 13h ago
Canada again proving itself to be half-way between US and international English. It's icing sugar in Ireland/UK/ANZAC.
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u/flatspotting 11h ago
I am 99% sure youre in Canada, enjoy the jack-shit anyone you contact will do about it. I had this issue consistently with General Mills Honey Nut Cheerios - I was buying it for my kid and noticed the bigger box wasnt really feeling heavier, weighed it, the 1kg box was consistently 500-600grams, emailed Kellogs, filed measurement complaints, contacted the store, provided proof of it all with multiple scales, boxes, UPC, etc etc.
Kellogs apologized and gave me like 5 free boxes - the store offered a refund for the boxes I had bought but didnt care about selling more of it (Save On Foods) - and the Measurement official complaint I filed got entirely ignored.
I fucking hate getting scammed in EVERY aspect of life with nothing we can do. Shit like this makes me want to self-checkout and steal shit constantly honestly, maybe then I would break even.
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u/boldpear904 16h ago
fun fact you can make powdered sugar by blending 1 cup of granulated white sugar and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch until its fluffy, ive done this when i needed more
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u/Velqi 16h ago
You can also just blend sugar with nothing lol
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u/boldpear904 16h ago
true, but it wont be as fluffy, ive tried both and prefer the tiny bit of corn starch personally
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u/sleepysof_ 15h ago
thats the difference between "soft icing sugar" and "pure icing sugar"! Soft icing sugar is easier to work with in my experience
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u/pelirroja_peligrosa 15h ago
You can add in cornstarch at home. Or potato starch. Or tapioca starch. And just see which variation you like best. (I have to do this because I'm allergic to corn 🥲)
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u/TheScalemanCometh 9h ago
This is past mildly infuriating. This is my career. Contact your local equivalent to the department of commerce, weights and measures division. This is a whole different flavor unacceptable. I am one of the guys these companies call when they get red tagged by the state to fix the equipment responsible for this type of thing.
This is theft. However, the scale of the theft, no pun intended, is massive if this is not a singular bag error. Acceptable deviation for an NTEP approved balance, per NIST HB44 is, on average +/- 3 divisions for a standard class III balance. Your scale, appears to be reading by 1g, so that would be +/- 3g. Your scale is not likely NTEP approved, however, on average, in my experience those Walmart special portion balances are still accurate to within +/- 5g straight out of the box. If your scale IS NTEP approved, there will be a clear sticker on it saying it's accuracy class.
Assuming your balance is within my usual standard when dealing with those, if this is indicative of the product the company is shipping, they're shipping a full third less than they're claiming. Meaning they're cheating the consumer, the retailer, the shipping company, and likely their own suppliers as well... as the reported sales are far more than they're actually capable of producing, so the supplier is getting undercut. If that is every bag... they produce thousands, if not hundreds of thousands per day. That's millions, potential billions of dollars in explicit theft if the company is aware of this mis-calibration.
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u/Zephyr_Dragon49 13h ago
Report it to the company. Sometimes QC misses stuff and customer complaints lead to recalls. Last time I reported a bad product (soymilk reeked of and tasted like shrimp) they sent me a coupon for a free replacement. Nothing is ever 100% accurate but if it keeps happening then that's a trend that can be reported to the government agency that deals with weights and measurements in your area
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u/theLuminescentlion 14h ago
Is this not illegal?? I thought the weights and balances department did something about this?
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u/debaser64 13h ago
That’s annoying as hell. If they’d just cut it with a little cocaine they could get away with selling you less sugar and you’d never have noticed!
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u/x2lazy2die 10h ago
Isnt there a governing body for false weights where they could get fined? Office of weights and measures of something for us i think
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u/this_name_ok 13h ago
Aussie here, this happens here too, you’ll only here the odd story on the news about a customer being shorted 200g on a 1kg meat product, stores will post a statement, “our hearts ache with this failure, we will look into it” but happens to everyone, whole family including myself experienced this, ask a random person who’s actually weighed their purchases, same story. you can directly contact the store support, they can give you equal or small compensation, but i’m guessing this is so common practice they have a hidden fund to cover when people call up with money they save shorting customers, and the people you talk to literally have a script for this. you will need to have photos, prove your scales are not faulty, the receipt, patience, and a offering/ sacrificial kidney for them to start the process though.
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u/nixtunes 9h ago
Step 1) Sell underweighted goods
Step 2) Pay a negligible fine when you're caught
Step 3) Pocket the difference
These scumbags view fines as just the cost of doing business.
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u/FixedLoad 14h ago
I see my old coke dealer got a new job bundling sugar! Call that son of a bitch on his shit, he'll cough up the rest. He's good for it!
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u/Kyletheinilater 10h ago
Iirc they can say the weight includes the bags but there is no chance that bag weighs 300 grams on its own either.
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u/Emotional-Wishbone95 8h ago
In Ireland, someone reports this and Weights and Measures show up at your company. Its the oldest food law and they will shut you down if you are not complying. Worked in a big bakery where the main oven had been working a bit hot causing more water loss than calculated leading to final product averaging 20g underweight. Took a full day with them of finding out the problem, proving it wasn't deliberate and weeks of paperwork and systems changes to ensure it wouldn't happen again. Is there any equivalent in the US you could complain to?
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u/MeLlamoViking 4h ago
As someone who works in food safety, contact the company with the lot info on the bag. In my experience, these are weighed at the final step, there's rarely any significant verification or prevention of an employee or a scale being tared incorrectly (even if part of a run). If this is across multiple runs (not bags, but lots/batches) , it's one thing, but this type of thing happens from time to time with most suppliers I've worked with at some point or another.
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u/NookNookNook 12h ago
Weights and measures going out the window is the first real sign of empire collapse.
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u/crysisnotaverted 16h ago
Fun fact: It seems like every company that is selling bulk goods like this is doing this.
They do it with zero consequence. There's a guy that goes to grocery stores and weighs everything and calls companies out for literally lying to consumers, His name is Jimmy Wrigg.
Guess what one of the most guilty companies is? Dominoes Sugar: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8CnfBzxmal8