SAULT STE. MARIE - A Sault Ste. Marie man is looking for answers after finding a substantial weight discrepancy in his groceries.
Paramasivum Kapali went shopping at Food Basics on Pine Street earlier this month, where he purchased meat to prepare meals for his pet dogs.
The pork loin chop centre and boneless rib that he purchased was in two packages advertised as 2.92 kilograms and 3.246 kilograms, but Kapali found they each weighed well over a kilogram less than advertised.
At home, when he noticed the packages felt light, he checked their weight with a food scale.
“It was only half of the weight,” he said.
“I decided maybe the scale is not showing correctly, so I measured the other weight. The other weight also showed the same thing.”
Kapali decided to go back to the store to address the issue, where he said management was understanding and offered to give him a gift card for the error.
“The manager is a nice guy. I told him, ‘Hey, this is what happened. This is the weight. It is not correct,’” he said.
“He said, ‘OK, wait, I'll give you a gift card,’ and I said, ‘You know what? I'm not here for the gift card.’”
Kapali didn't push for a refund, but he's concerned other customers may have been sold less food than advertised. He decided to raise the issue with the hope that they can get refunds if that’s the case.
During his discussion at the store, he also learned that this cut of meat is packaged and shipped from a separate facility.
“I feel sad even for the Food Basics store because they also purchased at that cost. They also paid more money for less weight of product,” Kapali said.
“I have no problem with Food Basics. They always help the people with keeping the food low cost.”
Following that discussion, Kapali also brought the issue to Measurement Canada – a federal agency that helps ensure accuracy in sold goods.
SooToday reached out to Metro Inc., the parent company of Food Basics, who confirmed this cut of meat is processed, packaged, and labelled at a “central facility by a third-party partner.”
The company said all scales used are certified and that weight checks are performed multiple times daily to ensure accuracy.
“Discrepancies of this size are extremely rare,” said communications manager Stephanie Bonk.
“This was an isolated equipment setup issue that caused multiple trays to pass the scale together, resulting in incorrect weights. While rare, this type of error can occur if spacing between packages is disrupted during processing.”
As a result of the error, Bonk said additional steps are underway to help prevent this from happening again in the future.
“Our vendor is retraining line staff on proper equipment setup and incident management,” Bonk said.
“In addition, maximum weight parameters are being configured for each (stock keeping unit) so that any package outside the acceptable range will not receive a label.
"These measures ensure accuracy and prevent double-weighted packs from moving forward in the process," she said.