Perhaps supermarkets have decided they have had enough from shoplifters and now they are determined to fight back. I recently discovered that my Kroger store is ripping me off every time I buy produce, or anything that comes in a bag that is weighed on the scanner. How did I find this out you might ask…
It all started when I tried shopping at Whole Foods. They have some very expensive stuff in that store. So expensive that I actually wondered how much money I was paying for water mist on the produce and for the bag itself. For example, the Shitake mushrooms I bought were $13.99 per pound, yikes. What was interesting was that I noticed on the receipt at Whole Foods that they subtract some weight from the purchase… something called a tare. I figured Whole Foods must have heard people complain about this in the past. Whole Foods removes 0.01 pounds to account for the weight of the bag. So, in other words… almost $.14 was removed from the price I paid for the mushrooms because of the bag weight – that would have been an expensive bag.
I wondered if other supermarkets also “tare” off the weight of the bags. After asking around a bit and searching on the internet I learned that all retailers are supposed to tare off the weight of containers/bags – it is in fact illegal for retailers to charge for the weight of the bags. I learned that retailers must tare off the weight of at least one scale graduation (technical scale jargon from weights and measures police for how fine the resolution is for the scale). In the US that is normally 0.01 lb. for every produce item sold. But some bags may weigh more, and they must tare off the weight of heavier bags accurately.
I decided to test my theory and see how much I was getting ripped off. I normally shop at Kroger and during my normal visit I purchased some bulk whole bean coffee (which I learned is what weights and measures police use to sting supermarkets for this type of fraud), a jalapeño pepper, some shallots, and some pistachios. I discovered none of these items had any tare listed on the receipt like at Whole Foods. I asked the manager what was up – he said they don’t print a tare on the receipt. I double checked the weight of the things I bought and showed the manager that there is clearly no tare off for the bag weight – he had no answer for that! Look how much I was ripped off in a single visit!
Whole Bean Coffee: $9.29 / lb. Special Bag weight: 0.03 lb
Ripped off for: $.27
Jalapeño Pepper: $2.49 / lb. Bag weight: 0.01 lb
Ripped off for: $.02
Shallots: $3.99 / lb. Bag weight: 0.01 lb
Ripped off for: $.04
Pistachios: $5.99 / lb. Special Bag weight: 0.03 lb
Ripped off for: $.18
In a single visit I was robbed of $.51. This may not seem like much, or maybe I should steal a candy bar next time and not feel guilty about it! Just imagine the 2,477 grocery stores that Kroger runs. I figure they have at least 1000 customers buying bagged merchandise each day per store… if each customer was robbed of $.51 that would amount to (2447x1000x$.51) = $1,247,970 per day! No wonder those executives get paid so much.
What can you do about it? Well, you could steal a candy bar each trip and try to explain to the police that the supermarket ripped you off first – you are just getting even. Or you could contact your local weights and measures authorities and check on retailers yourselves, I know I will. I plan to check on a few more retailers to see if they are also ripping their customers off. Please send me your comments and let me know if you have had a similar experience. I’ll post updates based on things you share with me.
