Supermarkets could be short weighting products and contributing to the cost-of-living crisis, research by the Trading Standards Institute suggests.

Checks carried out by the service’s officers as part of its retail monitoring project, looked into packaged products at 39 stores throughout the west of Scotland and found under-weight items at 17 locations.

Of 296 products checked, 24 did not match the weight labelled on its packaging. Further investigations into 2,496 individual packs of these product lines found a total of 71 to be short weighted, with deficiencies as high as 23% leading to a loss of up to £1.10 per pack.

The supermarkets involved were not named, however the checks revealed one packer with a contract to supply half-a-million ready meals per week had deficiencies of up to 14%, resulting in a consumer loss of 26p per pack.

The Trading Standards said: “Taken to the extreme, if the same level of deficiency were replicated across the packer’s entire production the total collective detriment to consumers could be as high as £130,000 per week, or £6.76m per year.’

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“Measurement is at the heart of fair trade in goods and is a core issue for Trading Standards teams across Scotland, making sure that consumers get what they pay for and that businesses are weighing and measuring goods accurately,” Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland chair, David MacKenzie said.

“With the current cost-of-living crisis, it is even more important that the processes and systems that should be in place are working properly and consumers get what they pay for.”

He added: “SCOTSS works very closely with colleagues in Weights & Measures authorities across Scotland, and this is an excellent example of local authority officers working together to ensure the market is working properly and fairly and that consumers are getting what they pay for.

“Officers are there not only to protect consumers but also to help and support businesses.”

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