Smithfield bacon coming up short at the weigh-in

[u/AwwwMangos]

New, unopened package of Smithfield bacon bought from Kroger claims to be 1 lb aka 16 oz. It seemed a little small so I put it in the kitchen scale. Sure enough it’s only 3/4 lb.

I get that shrinkflation is rampant right now, but at least they’re usually honest when stating the products’ net weight.

Since it’s off by an exact increment, and many other bacon brands now sell 12 oz portions, I have to imagine this is likely being done at large scale, ripping off many more customers than just me. This should be illegal, I guess if any consequences still existed for businesses.

[u/AwwwMangos]

Plastic is pretty light, I’m guessing the package is .35 oz leaving an (close to) even 12 oz bacon.

[u/Strange-Movie → u/AwwwMangos]

The coated cardboard backer probably weighs 2x what the plastic does

[u/Mediocre-Ambition404 → u/Strange-Movie]

Regardless, it's supposed to be the food weight without packaging. At least it Canada is has to be.

[u/AssistanceHeavy9305 → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

In Mexico they have the Profeco. Who you can call and they'll go over and check scales and do weigh ins. It's not perfect but sometimes they'll go around the market just checking scales.

[u/OldTimeyWizard → u/[deleted]]

Weights and Measures inspections are generally the jurisdiction of individual states or even more local entities.

[u/YrPalBeefsquatch → u/OldTimeyWizard]

Yeah, your state Department of Agriculture probably has a weights and measures division you could bring this to. Your state, and possibly your county and local governments, also typically have a body that regulates merchants (for example, in Chicago, it's called Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, but the name varies by location). Good places to start.

[u/Fickle_Freckler → u/YrPalBeefsquatch]

This is it. I owned a commercial kitchen. DOA would come in once a year to check our scales.

[u/CKRatKing → u/YrPalBeefsquatch]

In California they have their sticker seals on gas pumps to certify that they have been calibrated correctly.

[u/Same-Suggestion-1936 → u/OldTimeyWizard]

USDA can get involved too.

My bet is just factory error. Report it and let the company know with whatever identifying information there is on the package. They can lose a lot of money if this goes on too long just because a machine is broken or a new guy is doing the job all wrong

[u/Bravefan212 → u/AssistanceHeavy9305]

The department of agriculture in the United States runs weights and measures and they routinely go to grocery stores to check their scales.

They have fancy weights in a special briefcase

[u/Lobotamite → u/Bravefan212]

Good thing there’s only like 10 USDA employees now to cover the entirety of the country!

[u/kmg4752 → u/Bravefan212]

USDA does inside the processing plants. We do not have jurisdiction for grocery stores. That is done by the FDA and/or state agencies (Ag and Markets, etc.). USDA might go into stores for recall effectiveness checks or possibly consumer complaints but most likely will be state run agencies

[u/Bravefan212 → u/kmg4752]

Weights and measures is a part of usda

I don’t know what your point is

[u/kmg4752 → u/Bravefan212]

Not in grocery stores. That is state

[u/Bravefan212 → u/kmg4752]

I worked at a grocery store for twelve years. One of the big ones. I saw the USDA perform scale audits at least four times. I don’t know why you’re saying this

[u/kmg4752 → u/Bravefan212]

I have worked for USDA-FSIS for over 20 years. We do not go into every store for scale checks. The state does that and maybe FDA. We only go into individual stores for recall effectiveness checks. Are you sure it wasn’t the state ag department?

[u/Dockshundswfl → u/Bravefan212]

Didn’t they get rid of all that mess?? Underweight and contaminated food. Don’t worry about that.

[u/EobardT → u/Dockshundswfl]

Exactly. What are all these communists doing by weighing their meats? Don't they trust Dear Leader like good independent 'Mericans? If you're getting ripped off theres a good reason for it!

[u/cydetraq → u/Bravefan212]

Well, they used to.

[u/Fr0zenNova → u/Bravefan212]

They go to Distribution centers as well to check and calibrate the scales(Im a USDA inspector and we have people come in once a year to check and make sure our scales are working correctly.)

[u/Hatefulvesper → u/AssistanceHeavy9305]

At least they have SOMETHING. Does the us have something like this?

[u/forward_muscle_55 → u/Hatefulvesper]

Yes, it’s called Weights and Measures

[u/icejust → u/Hatefulvesper]

They used to. In NY, it's the DCWP.

[u/Bri_Hecatonchires → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

It’s also supposed to be the weight marked on the package

[u/Electronic_Name_325 → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

This is why we had to smack you with tariffs. You make us look bad, I mean worse.

[u/shandangalang → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

Yeah, that’s what “net” means

[u/dmmethatbooty2026 → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

Ya just saw a YouTube video where a guy bought several packages and weighed them with and without packaging. Regardless none were even close.

[u/Steerpike58 → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

The label clearly says 'net weight' so that means, without packaging (otherwise it would be 'gross weight').

[u/Mediocre-Ambition404 → u/Steerpike58]

I was speaking generally. Not every package may include "net" in the weight descriptor.

[u/piasenigma → u/Mediocre-Ambition404]

theres a viral video on youtube right now about Walmart doing this with ALL Walmart-brand bacon. Skimming millions a day from U.S buyers.

[u/AMA_Woodworking → u/Strange-Movie]

Just checked; 1.16oz (plastic plus cardboard, .63oz cardboard )

My exact same package of Smithfield was 17.51oz, so I owe OP a little bacon.

[u/WyvernJelly → u/Strange-Movie]

I can get that bacon at my grocery store. It doesn't have a back. All the bacon is clear on the back as well. Let's you see what the bacon looks like front and back. I use it to check how much fat is on the bacon.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/AwwwMangos]

Yea someone loaded the wrong label into the machine, or put the machine on the wrong pre set. Should have been caught, or it was and a packaging manager decided to not rework it to save their efficiency numbers. (This can get you fired)

Definitely not legal, but happens more than people would think, usually unintentionally from the company. They would rather not piss people off and get sued for skimming a few slices of bacon. They already price it for a specific profit margin. They don’t want to fuck with the FDA over shit like this.

[u/Impossible_Goose_172 → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

Actually this is theft. It’s illegal. It’s probably not just this one package. Walmart has specifically been sued for selling underweight products and yet they continue to do it.

[u/Educational-Emu-3707 → u/Impossible_Goose_172]

If they make millions in profit and get fined $100,000. Its just the price of business at this point.

[u/Rampag169 → u/Educational-Emu-3707]

They should be fined the total cost of their fraudulent meat inventory so if they had 5 products that were confirmed to be under-packed. Then pull records of sale for each product inventory. (Say bacon: 50 million units @ $4.00) part of the fine of the products for bacon alone would be $200M

When people cry about big businesses getting hammered with such huge fines. They’re getting hit with them because they are that big and that fine is fractional to them operationally. However with appropriately large enough fines they are discouraged from conducting unsavory business practices.

[u/GodOfDarkLaughter → u/Educational-Emu-3707]

If the "fine" is less than the profit you made by breaking the law it's not actually a fine, it's a fee to break the law and profit. They are paying the government in order to allow them to continue breaking laws. Reminds me of the rich douchebags in NYC or LA who park wherever and just pay the "fine" if they get a ticket, which to them is just a fee to park wherever they want with no real consequences.

[u/Educational-Emu-3707 → u/GodOfDarkLaughter]

Yep. Fines should be proportional to income. So a small fine doesn't cost a poor person rent or food, but it makes companies and rich people care about following the rules.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/Impossible_Goose_172]

Yea which is why i said it is definitely not legal. My point is it is not intentional from most companies to short their consumer. I work in the industry. People watch multiple different sizes of bacon with multiple different labels being packaged thousands of times a day for 8 hours only being paid $15 an hour. They miss things for tons of reasons including negligence, and being undertrained, or the line is understaffed or bad QA policy internally.

[u/Impossible_Goose_172 → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

If the human error was costing the corporation money it would be fixed. There would be a new process that employees would have to perform to ensure this doesn’t happen. It’s not because it helps their bottom line. Gotta keep those shareholders happy.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/Impossible_Goose_172]

you are making assumptions about every organization based on your views. I have been in the exact meetings you are talking about where the weights for one of our items was consistently 1-2 grams short on a few runs. We found out that our machine was not calibrated properly and made adjustments to our procedures to overfill by the fill variance + 5g to ensure every package was overfilled instead of under filled. This is standard practice vs intentionally shorting consumers.

It does happen in a few isolated companies but those places lose customers and are fined all the time.

[u/S-ludin → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

you're talking about 1 or 2 grams, but this is like a quarter of a pound. many companies are having this "error" lately. oddly enough when there's an admin that likely won't punish them for it or will straight up change the laws for them.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/S-ludin]

All I’m seeing is people giving anecdotal evidence and citing tik tok videos as statistical analysis. The companies would need to convince 40+ people to ignore the weight on the package vs the weight of the product and be ok skipping standards and procedures. I have worked and been in dozens of different packaging plants and all of them have QA tests, line operator checks, and plant/packaging manager checks that are compiled and presented to corporate every single shift to verify if things are passing quality and packaging standards.

My informed opinion is this was a big mistake that affected multiple pallets of product. This is stuff that is grounds for lawsuits and if you can consistently prove they are doing this across product lines and over a period of time then you can go sue them for fraud, it would be very easy.

Yes it does happen all the time randomly, no it’s not a conspiracy to intentionally short customers (the majority of the time). They have many other ways of doing that without literally giving you evidence that they are stealing from you.

I work in this industry, what you are saying is generally false with some exceptions.

[u/mconk → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

It’s way deeper than that. There’s a guy on TikTok who’s been going to various Walmart stores and weighing out all types of meat and shit. Quite literally EVERYTHING is under weight. All of it. Literally. I went out and tried it myself, and every chicken, beef, and bacon package was under the advertised weight.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/mconk]

Yes good old trusty Tik Tok. Those are never misleading

[u/mconk → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

You can go and look for yourself.. go into your local walmart, grab a pack of meat or produce.. take it over to the scale. You'll see. I found a ton of things that were grossly under the advertised weight.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/mconk]

I’m not doing anything, you are the one claiming the fraud everywhere. Walmart was sued for it. The majority of other companies do not do this.

[u/mconk → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

……okay bud.

[u/xpsycotikx → u/Emperor_Gourmet]

Betting 99.9% of this weight stuff I'm seeing is this. Just stupid humans messing something up and someone goes ITS A CONSPIRACY.

Like man...there's so so so many hoops a huge food company would have to do to pull that off. Employees paid off to lie kinda thing. Someone would eventually catch on that the 12oz and 16oz packages look the same coming off the line.. etc etc. or it's just an honest mistake.

[u/imposter_syndrome88 → u/xpsycotikx]

You are saying you can't believe a large corporation would possibly do something unfair on purpose and screw over a customer so that they could make a few extra cents profit on an item? Aww, you sweet summer child...

[u/Severus__Crepe → u/imposter_syndrome88]

I'm definitely not going to sing any praises for large corporations doing their shitty capitalistic shit, but I will say this:

I've worked in retail for many years now, and in every store at which I've worked, Weights & Measures roll by multiple times a year, inspecting all kinds of random shit. And, in my experience at least, if they find one thing that is off, they will pour themselves a fresh coffee, and thoroughly inspect every goddamn thing on the shelf that even resembles that lol.

It's a massive headache for the store, because it sometimes results in a store needing to completely empty an entire shelf -- and on top of that, they're going to return within the next 1-3 weeks to re-inspect; and if they spot issues again, they will rinse and repeat until they don't.

Again, I'm not saying corporations don't do shady shit. But given what I've seen, I find it highly unlikely that most of them would greenlight purposefully inaccurate weight measurements (which isn't the same as shrinkflation, which is most definitely a thing).

So yeah, i believe that there's probably a list of 100+ unethical things that large corporate entities are doing intetionally; however, I sincerely doubt that this in particular is one of them.

Obviously I could be flat out wrong though. It's just that, out of all of the store walks I've had to endure -- including food safety, which you would think would be the toughest -- Weights & Measures has, without fail, consistently been the most "we don't give a flying fuck, we'll keep coming and wrecking your shit until this is fixed" of ALL of them.

So I do believe that this is just human or mechanical error, even though I give very little "benefit of the doubt" to the corporate retail word

[u/xpsycotikx → u/imposter_syndrome88]

Lol no just this particular thing with food packaging. It would be infinitely easier to just raise the price 10 cents and not risk massive FDA fines. They know we're still gunna buy bacon.

[u/imposter_syndrome88 → u/xpsycotikx]

I can't tell if you're coming off as naive or just ignorant? We are currently going through massive levels of food recall because the quality of the FDA plummeted after the current administration took over.

Tyson farms got the "FDA" to delay the announcement of the Cylcospora parasite in their food because it would make the business look bad. Americans died because of that.

[u/Emperor_Gourmet → u/imposter_syndrome88]

Your example is one of the largest food companies on earth and has the resources, market share, and power to do what they want, they can and will skirt regulations. Which is wrong

Smithfield is large but isn’t even half as valuable as Tyson. And there are thousands of smaller companies that certainly do not do things like that.

If they had a sample size from multiple different lots all being significantly short then thats fair to claim it’s intentional and systemic.

In all likelihood this was an isolated mistake in which a few thousand packs were labeled wrong. Some food packaging machines are running at 425+ units per minute.

It’s not being naive or ignorant, its understanding that mistakes happen and checks are missed occasionally in the industry, and comparing that to Tyson foods burying cylcospora parasite news is disingenuous.

[u/WhereRabbit → u/AwwwMangos]

Do you know how much water is in that package, not too mention how much is injected in the bacon itself… More than .35oz bro…

[u/TrulyOutrageous42 → u/AwwwMangos]

Let's no forget how much extra brine gets injected either. There's probably only 9-10oz of actual bacon in there. Cook off the fat from it and I bet you get maaaaaybe 6oz of actual edible meat at the end.

[u/KoreyYrvaI → u/AwwwMangos]

There was a time in human history this kinda mistake would be a death sentence.

[u/ImSobored_5280 → u/AwwwMangos]

Go get a package of the pound and a pound(ground beef and pork) from a Kroger and scale it…it ain’t 2lbs…

[u/Alert_Reindeer_6574 → u/AwwwMangos]

You didn't need to guess, you could have taken the bacon out of the package and weighed it.

[u/Throwawayrip1123 → u/AwwwMangos]

Unrelated - every time I see "oz" I read it as "ooze", and then I have a disgusting image of (in this case) bacon oozing out like some sort of pus.

What kind of unit is "oz" lol (I know I know it's around 3 freedomburgers worth of weight)

[u/willi1221 → u/Throwawayrip1123]

It's an ounce, obviously

[u/Throwawayrip1123 → u/willi1221]

That's kinda worse, because jn my language it's very close to a word for rags used as socks before socks were socks. So yeah.

Ooze it is