Overcharged at the butcher - could you be getting ripped off too?
- Replies 16
One of our wonderful members, Helen, has been kind enough to inform us of an issue occurring at her local butcher. If you’re concerned you’re being overcharged, or if it’s not something you’ve considered much before, please read on.
Helen lives in a country town in WA but her situation is likely common regardless of where you live. You may or may have noticed your butcher weighing your meat on a tray or once it’s already wrapped in paper – but is this legal?
With an absence of choices and a desire to avoid larger supermarkets like Woolies, Coles and ALDI, member Helen has been searching for a good local butcher to support.
Here’s her latest experience:
‘I was being served by a lady and asked her for two chicken schnitzels which were on sale for $18.50 per kilo. She dutifully picked out two as I had requested but then took a large black plastic tray-like thing and placed the two schnitzels on it and then placed the lot on the scales. I spoke to her and said she was weighing and charging me for this black tray and she shouldn’t be weighing it at the same time as the chicken schnitzels. She couldn’t understand what I meant and I repeated my request not to weigh the tray and then had to repeat it again.
‘Obviously, the actual butcher could hear what was going on and came out from his back section and told her to take the tray away and just weigh the chicken, which she did. It was also then that I realised that she had also done this with my first purchase of 4 lamb chops. But by this stage (and as a couple of other people were waiting to be served) I decided not to say anything more about the chops and paid for what I had bought which were now each on these little black trays and covered with plastic and decided that this butcher certainly wouldn’t be my new choice to shop at. I even wondered if this is legal.
‘When I got home I actually weighed one of the trays and I think if I remember correctly it was 5 gms. And when I calculated how much that would have added to the cost of the chicken it was about 90 cents.
‘I must admit that I sort of felt the butcher and his lady server thought I was a nasty complaining customer, but I never spoke loudly or nastily but just requested my meat be weighed without the addition of the added weight of the tray.’
Is it common for butchers to weigh products in the tray? If anyone has some clarity on this situation, we’d love to hear from you.
Helen is also curious about the reliability of the price being charged and the lack of evidence.
‘I usually purchase a week or more worth of meat at a time and at the two previous butchers I have been dealing with, you ask for each individual item and it is put on the scales and they usually write something down on a piece of paper. When you are finished, they add it all up themselves (not on a machine) and then tell you it is $78.00 or whatever. You pay them and are given no indication of what each selection was charged for and you are left wondering if they were able to add it correctly and just tell you the final payment.
‘This seems to be the routine at most butchers I have tried here and is the reason I was looking for a new butcher as I wasn’t really happy with how the one I was going to was working out the total of my purchases. I should also add this second one that I was trying out and was using the black trays and that charge also went into the total (say like 5 or 6 trays!!!!!) also just said a total figure you had to pay without any breakdown of the individual prices. I know you could ask them each time they weighed one of the purchases how much it was and then write it down and do your own adding and then have to query their total if it wasn’t the same as what you had worked out. But with lots of people at the counter who all think you are antagonistic, you don’t like to make a spectacle of yourself. I suppose the answer is just to buy my meat from Coles or Woolworths where it is already marked how much each individual choice is. But I would like to help the local butchers but it would seem they are just out to charge more and more.’
Trade measurement laws regulate the retail and wholesale sale of meat in Australia. Here are two relevant rules:
- staff must use the scales in the correct manner (e.g. level and indicating zero before use)
- position the scales so that the customer can easily see the weighing process (if not, the butcher must provide a written statement of the weight)
According to the federal government, the National Measurement Act 1960 and the National Trade Measurement Regulations 2009 regulate how meat is sold using measurement.
Butchers found to be short-measuring customers, could be fined up to $222,000 per offence.
The SA government states, ‘you have a right to expect that any goods you purchase by weight or volume have been accurately weighed and measured and that all pre-packed goods are labelled with their correct weight.’
‘Pay only for the product, not the packaging material - e.g. if you buy potato salad at the deli counter, you should only pay for the salad, not for the weight of the plastic container. In many stores, the electronic checkout scales are set to automatically deduct the weight of the packaging during the weighing process. In other stores, staff manually set the scale to deduct the weight of the packaging materials.’
The WA government doesn’t seem to list any specific rules but it’s reasonable to assume that the federal rules for zeroing before weighing imply the package should not be included in the charged weight.
It’s my opinion (April), that you find a new butcher.
Members, do you have any advice or thoughts on this? Does your butcher provide a breakdown of individual prices? Do they weigh in or out of the tray? We (and Helen) would love to hear from you.
Helen lives in a country town in WA but her situation is likely common regardless of where you live. You may or may have noticed your butcher weighing your meat on a tray or once it’s already wrapped in paper – but is this legal?
With an absence of choices and a desire to avoid larger supermarkets like Woolies, Coles and ALDI, member Helen has been searching for a good local butcher to support.
Are you being overcharged? Image Credit: Shutterstock
Here’s her latest experience:
‘I was being served by a lady and asked her for two chicken schnitzels which were on sale for $18.50 per kilo. She dutifully picked out two as I had requested but then took a large black plastic tray-like thing and placed the two schnitzels on it and then placed the lot on the scales. I spoke to her and said she was weighing and charging me for this black tray and she shouldn’t be weighing it at the same time as the chicken schnitzels. She couldn’t understand what I meant and I repeated my request not to weigh the tray and then had to repeat it again.
‘Obviously, the actual butcher could hear what was going on and came out from his back section and told her to take the tray away and just weigh the chicken, which she did. It was also then that I realised that she had also done this with my first purchase of 4 lamb chops. But by this stage (and as a couple of other people were waiting to be served) I decided not to say anything more about the chops and paid for what I had bought which were now each on these little black trays and covered with plastic and decided that this butcher certainly wouldn’t be my new choice to shop at. I even wondered if this is legal.
‘When I got home I actually weighed one of the trays and I think if I remember correctly it was 5 gms. And when I calculated how much that would have added to the cost of the chicken it was about 90 cents.
‘I must admit that I sort of felt the butcher and his lady server thought I was a nasty complaining customer, but I never spoke loudly or nastily but just requested my meat be weighed without the addition of the added weight of the tray.’
Is it common for butchers to weigh products in the tray? If anyone has some clarity on this situation, we’d love to hear from you.
Helen is also curious about the reliability of the price being charged and the lack of evidence.
‘I usually purchase a week or more worth of meat at a time and at the two previous butchers I have been dealing with, you ask for each individual item and it is put on the scales and they usually write something down on a piece of paper. When you are finished, they add it all up themselves (not on a machine) and then tell you it is $78.00 or whatever. You pay them and are given no indication of what each selection was charged for and you are left wondering if they were able to add it correctly and just tell you the final payment.
‘This seems to be the routine at most butchers I have tried here and is the reason I was looking for a new butcher as I wasn’t really happy with how the one I was going to was working out the total of my purchases. I should also add this second one that I was trying out and was using the black trays and that charge also went into the total (say like 5 or 6 trays!!!!!) also just said a total figure you had to pay without any breakdown of the individual prices. I know you could ask them each time they weighed one of the purchases how much it was and then write it down and do your own adding and then have to query their total if it wasn’t the same as what you had worked out. But with lots of people at the counter who all think you are antagonistic, you don’t like to make a spectacle of yourself. I suppose the answer is just to buy my meat from Coles or Woolworths where it is already marked how much each individual choice is. But I would like to help the local butchers but it would seem they are just out to charge more and more.’
Trade measurement laws regulate the retail and wholesale sale of meat in Australia. Here are two relevant rules:
- staff must use the scales in the correct manner (e.g. level and indicating zero before use)
- position the scales so that the customer can easily see the weighing process (if not, the butcher must provide a written statement of the weight)
According to the federal government, the National Measurement Act 1960 and the National Trade Measurement Regulations 2009 regulate how meat is sold using measurement.
Butchers found to be short-measuring customers, could be fined up to $222,000 per offence.
The SA government states, ‘you have a right to expect that any goods you purchase by weight or volume have been accurately weighed and measured and that all pre-packed goods are labelled with their correct weight.’
‘Pay only for the product, not the packaging material - e.g. if you buy potato salad at the deli counter, you should only pay for the salad, not for the weight of the plastic container. In many stores, the electronic checkout scales are set to automatically deduct the weight of the packaging during the weighing process. In other stores, staff manually set the scale to deduct the weight of the packaging materials.’
The WA government doesn’t seem to list any specific rules but it’s reasonable to assume that the federal rules for zeroing before weighing imply the package should not be included in the charged weight.
It’s my opinion (April), that you find a new butcher.
Members, do you have any advice or thoughts on this? Does your butcher provide a breakdown of individual prices? Do they weigh in or out of the tray? We (and Helen) would love to hear from you.
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