The Mercadona network has been rocked by a new controversy. For several weeks, Juan Roig’s company was subjected to harsh accusations. depending on the weight of some products. As some users have complained on social media, some packaged products weigh less than what is supposed to be indicated on the packaging.
This prompted all the warnings urging many consumers to check the weight of the products that were added to the last shopping cart.
On a wave of memes and stunned occasional forged photos slipped into the limelight. cracks of truth. In particular, the image we show below has been quite widely shared in recent days on social media. It says: “It is forbidden to enter scales inside the supermarket.”
With a little sharpening, you can see Photoshop control marks. In fact, Mercadona’s own Twitter profile was supposed to debunk the truth about this billboard. It can be seen that the user who posted it was in a hurry and did not finalize the graphic image. In addition, he ate the tilde “scales”: unforgivable as it could be. However, many users fell for the bait, believing that said posters actually belonged to the Jacendado factory.
What is net weight in food
But here’s the big question: Is it possible to simply deceive the consumer by the weight of the food? The truth is, it’s not that easy, thankfully. There is legislation that tightly regulates the information that appears on the packaging of supermarket products. And net weight is no exception. This net weight is one of the elements must appear as a matter of course in packaged foods, as well as a list of ingredients or a nutritional chart, to name but a few.
In some products, such as canned food, we can also find the so-called “dry matter”. This is because it is necessary to indicate both the weight of the product with the liquid it contains – net weight, and real food weight after removal of the covering liquid – draining the mass. However, the recent Mercadona controversy does not seem to have affected products of this type, but rather fresh ones, which are more prone to weighing errors.
Doctor of Food Science and Technology, Miguel Angel Luruena, shed some light on this heavy topic on his Twitter profile. In his thread, he quoted a viral tweet from a consumer who had the curious idea of weighing a tray of Mercadona meat at home. What was his surprise when he saw that the number thrown on the scales does not match the original packaging: Actual weight was 55 grams less than labeled.
Doing the calculations and sticking to the home weight, we see that the product should have cost €5.62 instead of the €7.10 the consumer spent on their ticket. This mathematical difference caused an ardent wave of distrust towards Mercadona, encouraging the weighing of endless foods such as rice, pineapple or shrimp by other users. Judging by the user footage, many of them lost less weight than what was indicated on the label.
Luruenha, author of the well-known blog Gominolas de Petroleo, explained that some products can see lost weight due to water loss. However, the differences seemed too significant for this to be the real cause of this edible dilemma. He also pointed out the following: “The meat is packaged, so if it releases water, it will stay in the package and weigh the same.”
It is unlikely that Mercadona’s scales are adjusted.
On the other hand, there certain tolerance limit in relation to the weight established by law. In particular, we can find this error in Royal Decree 1801/2008 of November 3, which lays down rules regarding the nominal quantity of packaged products and the control of their effective content.
It is allowed because in practice it is very difficult to stick the desired weight when packing: machines always have a certain error. But, of course, within these legal limits. Looking at the margins quoted at the legal level, it’s hard to justify Mercadona’s alleged mistakes. Thus, in the case of the aforementioned meat, the law would be violated because the error limits set by law would be exceeded.
Despite this, it seems unlikely that Mercadona’s scales are indeed falsified. The reason is that these tools are rigorously tested by independent organizations to ensure they function properly. What is the reason for the weight difference shown? Everything seems to indicate that the weight difference maybe due to human error. But, of course, this excludes those products that are packaged automatically. However, it may happen that an operator in the food industry incorrectly calculated the specific gravity of this product on the scales. For example, leaning on it or mistakenly removing a piece of food. This might be a plausible option in the original steak case.
Another hypothesis to consider is that fake user photos, motivated by some dissatisfaction with the company. After all, it is very easy to falsify the weight measurement in our favor. The photo is not a guarantee that it was the actual weight of the food. Again, we must also evaluate if a home scale is poorly calibrated or has losses in its measurements due to use and over time. It’s hard to find an exact answer. Of course, the shadow of doubt continues to haunt Mercado. Despite this, weighing errors are more likely to occur on home scales than on commercially calibrated scales. It is not so easy make a lollipop as we believe: there are many controls behind the food we eat.
Source: Hiper Textual
