There is a video a guy made recently testing this by using Walmart 1lb/16oz packaged bacon. He bought 3 or 4 packs and every single pack was short 2-3oz.
His name is Jimmy Wrigg! His work is incredible and yes, he uses calibrated scales and accounts for the moisture in the pad. You can find him here: https://www.instagram.com/jimmy_wrigg
But like if this is such an easily checked and verifiable claim why are they not getting sued? Im not saying hes right or wrong but if they are breaking tve law and scamming tveir customers this much I would assume someone would want to sue them especially in amercia, any competent law firm would dive on an opportunity to get an easy settlement from Wal-Mart.
Companies used to use filler ingredient that were not really edible 100 years ago... so not really surprising. That is why you need a well regulated government oversight with actual penalties and not just fines. CEO's should end up in jail for stuff like this.
The fines and fees giant companies face will never be more than a small expense compared to the margins from saving 8% wholesale on the millions of pounds of meat they process. It's another one of the insidious problems with allowing companies to operate at the size they presently do.
It is pennies. In the referenced video, Walmart was making $8M a month in extra profit. Combine that with everything else in their meat department and they are probably shorting us by up to $1B a year.
Walmart already had a class action settle for $45M, that’s pennies. IANAL, but I assume them settling and admitting no wrongdoing prevents the court from imposing much greater penalties for repeat behavior (see Whole Foods).
They are making up to $1B a year and paying out $50M every 2 years. That’s 2-1/2 pennies on each stolen dollar.
It's not necessarily about getting a payout, it's about making them stop what they are doing. In this example, OP is overpaying $2.78 and will continue to do that along with every other consumer buying that meat, until they are stopped. That it a lot of money for the individual, not just pennies.
I agree, it’s not pennies to their customers. However, the system is so stacked against them it’s a nigh unfixable issue (legally).
Your choices as the consumer are:
1. Take it on the chin.
2. Shop somewhere else. (The same guy posts videos of other stores and it’s not just Walmart doing this.)
3. Take them on in court and either eventually settle after 2-3 years or drag it all the way. If you settle, Walmart will continue doing this, but you’ll get a payout and the torture of court will cease.
4. Repeat step 3 all the way to court a second time for government agencies to actually do anything. The first court case was pennies as a warning.
I watched the video in reference and he mentions they make ~8 billion dollars annual just by stealing the 2-3 pieces of bacon from each package. And he notes, think of all the other products that they sell.
On top of that, he says the fine for this is so cheap, they just pay it off and keep on scamming.
My guess is even if there was a lawsuit, they’re scamming enough money that they’d just pay it out and keep on scamming.
But Walmart is sued constantly, there are tons of open court cases this very moment, so its weird to me that this very easily provablecase isn't being jumped on by lawyers.
Like if this is a real problem where Walmart is scamming their customers with this very easily measurable fact you probably just have to file and Walmart will settle with you without ever having to go to in front of a judge. Seems like free money if youre a law firm.
Because the law technically allows it depending on the circumstances. Companies are allowed to have underweight bags because they can claim the “average” weight of large batches of bags meets the threshold. It’s a big racket.
Not breaking the law because they made a law for themself to have the right to be under the sold amount. Which is stupid and the law should never lean toward them and they should atleast overshoot the amount no matter what.
just to be fair, when it was weighted the moisture was still mostly in the meat. if you somehow managed to buy it just after packaging it would be pretty accurate, if you get it 20 hours into it's 24 hour shelf life (or close to the end of however long they let it stay) it's going to have dried out some
that is actually a side effect of what it's actually for, which is to help preserve it's juicyness between being butchered and getting cooked in your house. but it's a very popular folktale that the ONLY reason for it is just to inflate prices
Also like…it’s accounted for, compare the pricing of chicken not packed in a water solution, it’s significantly more expensive per pound but ends up being roughly the same price because it’s a lower weight.
I was replying to a guy who said the water "straight up evaporated."
I will happily cover a styrofoam container of water with plastic wrap and watch the water level remain the same until long after that chicken would have gone bad.
This post sort of gives the same energy as when people buy a 12 ounce steak at a restaurant and complain that it isn’t 12 ounces when it’s served to them
You make one popular video in a niche, and that's why what become known for. And any video outside of the niche fails. So you have to keep making more of them.
But then eventually, you run out of content. You exhaust everything you can find in your niche, and yet the algorithm still wants more. So you begin stretching things to make it work, and then eventually straight up faking videos to make it work.
And then, eventually viewers lose interest in the niche and your constantly escalating need for clickbait and exaggerated reactions to stay relevant drives away the few remaining dedicated fans from the early days. Everything slowly collapses around you, and you are left at the end of it all, with a dead channel that has no hope of ever reviving. Videos that once reached millions reach a few thousand, and you slowly stop posting, until the only views you get are people looking back and wondering what happened to that old channel they used to watch half a decade ago.
Yeah but those people are incorrect. They're purchasing a cooked steak that started as a 12 oz cut. It's not sold by weight, its sold as a fully cooked dish, part and parcel with the service of the restaurant. A steakhouse doesn't have to list it by its raw weight, its just the most effective and intuitive way for customers to understand what they're ordering from the menu. A person purchasing a cooked steak understands it will weigh less after cooking; part of what they're purchasing is the cooking.
The folks buying raw meat want to purchase 12oz of raw meat. Raw meat is sold by weight, so everyone in the transaction needs to agree on how much is being purchased. Otherwise there's no point to any of this.
this is actually very heavily regulated and it's far likelier the meat has dried out since it was first measured or that your scale is not well calibrated or some combination of the two
The scale I carry (let me stress this, that is not for drugs and is for field specimens but I have been told by a paraphernalia pursuer it would be insane overkill for what they would use it for) has a level indicator and 4 weights in the case for calibration. I weighed 4 cosmic crisp apples after I saw some videos about powdered sugar getting shorted. Checked out, put them unbagged just rawdog on the self checkout scale. The scales were indeed way fucking off at self checkout and in the produce section. Might as well have had like 1/4 of another apple on there.
Anyway, weights and measures is a pretty easy thing to call up if you let them know and they don't fix it.
wouldnt it just be easier to just use the calibration weight in the produce scale if you were checking the scales and not measuring an already pre-packed and weighed item to compare?
One of the guys used three different scales at the grocery store which all weighed the same by the way, and they also brought their own scale. Being slightly uneven doesn't throw a pound of bacon off by 3 ounces. Haven't you ever used a food scale before?
Thats completley different... This package of meat has been placed on scale and priced accordingly. The weight is correct, its the moisture thats gone into the "meat diaper" thats the loss of weight here. Its completley unreasonable to account for that, as it will all depend on how long its been in said package.
4oz packages of cereal that actually weighs 3.5oz or whatever at Malwart arent weighed and priced indivdually. Stuff like that should actually be called out, not whatever this post is.
The US food industry runs on bribes nowadays so I wouldn't be surprised if there are inspectors turning the other way on this if anyone even bothers to check nowadays
Can just check jimmywrigg on yt. Finding countless items with wrong (using in store weights and checking if they're calibrated), including meats being 10-20% off even with the pad.
It's not "heavily regulated". That implies it is actually enforced.
SO many accounts have revealed hundreds of walmarts doing this. Even on packaged meat that the meat staff don't weight themselves. Stuff like prepackaged bacon being 1/10th of a pound below weight on every single package.
Lol classic. But honestly since these scales have a single load cell in the center of the platter, it probably wouldn't be too far off if you place the weight in the center and don't let the scale become unlevel. Absolutely not good though.
Did you know that scales serve numerous functions for reptiles? They protect from physical injury and harsh ultraviolet rays, prevent severe water loss to keep them alive on dry land, provide traction and grip for movement, and offer camouflage or defense against predators
Scale are small, sap-sucking bugs in the order Hemiptera that feed on plants. Adult females lack wings and legs, living permanently attached to stems or leaves under a protective waxy shell. Common types include armored scales, which make a separate hard cover, and soft scales, which produce sticky honeydew.
Scale can mean a weighing scale, a reptiles scale, or to scale up a building, and all three uses are entirely unrelated words with completely different etymologies
Genuine question, how do you get into that as a living? Like are you a scale enthusiast or did you just happen to end up in a job where that is required.
In my experience (limited compared to yours but I own a lot more scales than most people, prob 10 total ranging from .001 gram to bathroom scale, including 3 ‘kitchen’) .3 lbs off on a modern cheap digital kitchen scale is extremely abnormal. The old spring scales, yes, but im going to need to see some proof on the digital ones.
The worst I’ve owned have been slow to respond but still accurate to at least plus or minus a gram. I’ve compared measurements side by side for consistency and used calibration weights, although my weights are small so those are incremental tests when looking at higher weight ranges (add 1 gram calibrated to 400grams and scale correctly increases to 401 for example).
I’ll admit I’m curious now to clear up the remaining ambiguity since I wasn’t really testing outright accuracy at those weight ranges.
I have a sanity check on my kitchen scale. I know the weight of certain containers pre-zeroing, and they have been consistent for 15 years across a range of weights from 90 g to 1 kg. I'm not saying they are absolutely those weights, but they have never drifted. Also actual calibrated/known weight is within 1 gram at the 1kg point.
I also have a .001 g level scale, same story with a calibration weight/weight of the little dish that goes on it, remains consistent.
edit: I wish all recipes included weights for everything.
I bake and you're completely right. I have a nice $200 scale and a cheap $20 one. The cheap one is very accurate if you're measuring anything above 1 gram.
The dude that other people are referring to that has a lot of videos showing how far the weights are off by starts by putting a 100 gram weight on the scale. It shows up as 100 grams.
Yeah, that makes me discount everything they have to say. You couldn't use it for baking if it was off by that much. A human scale may be off by that much. But even a basic digital kitchen scale is accurate within an ounce
I use them a fair amount in my facility for hand filling bottles. We check them with a NIST certified 200g weight and they’re surprisingly accurate. We probably also need to check them with a 500g but cash is tight
You honestly going to bat for Kroger over scales? Every scale I've ever calibrated, including shitty at home scales, have been within a gram on a 100g weight. Less than 1% at the extreme, usually within 0.1g
My point is that a third of a pound seems like a lot to call "a bit." That's as much as a burger patty from the failed attempt to beat the quarter pounder by offering bigger patties. An attempt foiled by Americans' poor understanding of basic math...
Those pads can absorb a lot of water. .3 pounds or of water is 5oz, which would be a lot, but I could believe 2-4oz being absorbed if it’s been stored for a while. Not something to ignore. But we also don’t know how well calibrated that kitchen scale is, which kind of makes the whole discussion mute.
Moot* but mute also works pretty well, if we follow Joey's logic. 😄
I initially was leaning towards water weight, but decided to look it up, and supposedly meat is supposed to lose about 1-2% of water weight just sitting aroud like that. 0.3lbs is more likely due to them failing to tare the package, it seems.
I can assure OP that the good shit paid employees at Kroger aren’t doing this on purpose lmaoo more likely human error somewhere. Weighing meat in the U.S. is somewhat strict
I used to weigh and label meat at a grocery store. You put the pre-packaged meat on a scale, and it spits the label out. If op were to put his meat back in the package, and then weigh again he’d probably get a similar result to what the grocery store got.
You’re suppose to tare the box so it only calculates the meat but it’s entirely possible the employee forgot to do that or the juices went into the moisture control
When I worked meat department tare was automatically calculated. We had different codes to put in for the same cuts of meat that were in different size trays because the tare for those would be different
Assuming you’re in the US, every state has a standards weights and measures program or department. You can contact them about your concerns if you want. Possible that an employee forgot to tare the scale before starting but -0.3 lbs is not okay & in most places the fines for the store are hefty if their packages are all underweight.
That said, your scale is probably a residential model & uncalibrated and there is usually a small allowance for things like liquid loss so maybe double check on another scale if you can.
Fair question. Only dealt with them once in the 1990s in a New Jersey Pathmark. They took a random sampling & if a certain number of packages were under, they pulled & weighed everything in the department and the fine was per package in violation. Deli department got absolutely wrecked that afternoon.
When I worked at Ralphs they threatened the shit out of us, they said the department of weights and measures didn't make appointments, they just busted you and that kroger would pass the cost on to you personally.
Nah, we got rolled hard once, they ripped open all the scales and the department was shut. Manager let us stay on the clock though, which was nice. We were found to be "IN COMPLIANCE".
I always made sure to zero it right, I could not eat that fine. Hell, even if my family pooled money I couldn't eat that fine. And they don't like me that much.
Current beef prices are criminal in general. Idk how anyone can justify paying this much for garbage cuts. Around me shitty generic ground beef is $7/lb now. And a steak is like $16+ a pound for choice. I just stopped buying beef personally.
And I can confirm this isn't just a problem with deli stuff. I regularly see jars of peanut butter, bags of chips, canned food, etc, that has upwards of even 30-40% less grams than is advertised by their packaging. It's so ludicrously common and to such an excessive margin that it can't be negligence or coincidence.
I think they weigh it with the wrapper and that thingy thats on the bottom to absorb the moisture. I have watched how they wrap things in costco and i am 99% sure they weigh it with those things that adds ip
Anyone else notice that there seems to be more water added to canned products? Miracle Whip doesn't spread like it used to...spreads like a film instead of a coating. Fewer beans in a can and more water, stuff like that?
Yes, it seems to be one meat supplier to Walmart. The supplier weighs the item and puts the price sticker on there, not Walmart. But everyone needs to check their meat from Walmart and tell them if the weight is wrong.
They weight everything right away after packing. After sitting in the pack for a day or two the moisture leaves the chicken and soaked into the pad. Then you go and weight the chicken with less water weight. It will almost always be lighter than the label. Weight the moisture pad and see how much liquid is in it.
Moisture loss. People get mad that packages are leaking blood so we put in soakers. People get mad that soaker gets heavy and they have to buy the liquid. Lose lose situation like air in chip bags.
Someone switched the label. This happens A LOT. I remember yelling at someone because I caught them doing it.
The workers didn’t subtract the weight of the tray. Although, 0.3 lbs is pretty massive and the register usually takes that off automatically.
… Kroger might actually be screwing you over. They
are NOT a good company. I could go on for this one.
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What I would do is call your Kroger and complain. They’ll usually “make it right” and you should. That’s like a $3 difference. (Also, WTF is stew meat this expensive??)
Side note: I used to cut tenderloins and the scrap pieces got cut up and put on the shelf as stew beef. Not sure if that’s how it goes everywhere and even if it is not all stew beef is that. Like, we got actual packages of stew beef from the supplier.
Also, I haven’t worked there since I started my PhD. So it’s been awhile (4-5 years).
Hi, I’m a meat department manager in a large grocery store chain. We are very heavily regulated by weights and measures and there are many procedures and protocols when it comes to this, we call it ‘purge’ which is basically all the juices, blood, moisture etc that leaks out of the meat. Our tare system takes this into consideration by deducting the estimated purge and essentially removes weight of styrofoam tray and plastic. I do not see what the tare for this item is, at my company we usually display it on the price tag. We have tested this with every item by letting it sit in cooler for its entire shelf life which is typically 5 days, they calculate this and input into our scales when we type in specific PLUs for items.
From my understanding Kroger doesn’t use soaker pads which are to soak up the purge but try weighing it with the blood that you probably threw away, would probably be very close to the 2.3lb
You will be surprised how serious companies take these things, last thing we want is a violation from weights and measures.
Their "weight" includes the soaker pad & tray and any liquid it's absorbed - and while misleading, the Agriculture Dept. of Weights and measured has ruled it's not false advertising or fraud
Y’all ever scroll to a certain point on a comment section before backing out but as you do it you see the literal comment you were looking for so you have to scroll back and hope you don’t miss it
Weigh the pack and the meat as one before opening it. The mean while sitting in the pack does lose some weight due to drip loss and that weight on the pack should be accurate at time of printing the label.
If the weight of the pack and meat is lower than the label then you have a major problem.
The pack should weigh more than the label on your scales, providing your scales are correct, as the original machine should have a tare on it for the particular tray. In saying all that if they are blatantly trying to screw you then your areas weights and measures will come down on the store.
Grocery store workers aren't paid enough to scam you, the machine has them wrap everything up and heatshrink the bottom and then roll it down to the scale where it's slapped with a label.
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u/Groemore Aug 17 '26
There is a video a guy made recently testing this by using Walmart 1lb/16oz packaged bacon. He bought 3 or 4 packs and every single pack was short 2-3oz.