Selling by weight, each, bunch and other measures

The way that goods, especially produce, may be measured when sold has come up in several other topics. Common questions are:

  • If you buy something by each and they are not identical how do deal with size variation?
  • What is the content of a bunch?
  • Why cannot all produce be sold by weight?

When I found this government web page I thought it would tell me: Approval for the sale of products by number or linear or area measurement

I am now no wiser as it tells us that some goods may be sold by number or length and that in the case of fruit and veges a bunch may count as a unit to be sold. For example you may sell apples each but not grapes; you may sell rhubarb, silver beet and spring onions in bunches but not bananas. It doesn’t say why. It doesn’t say what a bunch is. The only commonality I can find in the things permitted to be in bunches is they can be readily tied together, this may mean that they were traditionally sold by bunch. Given the range of modern packaging possible is this even relevant today?

To make a bunch the single items must be selected and tied into bunches at some point in the packing process. Is this done by count, guess or weight? Why can’t the bunches show the weight, perhaps as 250 g ± 15 g? There are already allowances for weights changing due to desiccation since packing.

That page says it relies on this legislation, The National Trade Measurement Regulations 2009. I cannot find any answers there either.

If anybody has better eyes and can help with the legal basis of these type of sales and find results that I can’t please jump right in.

So far I can find no clarification of any of the above questions. It seems anomalous to me that if your scales do not weigh potatoes accurately you can be fined (up to $220,000) but what you put in a bunch of asparagus is up to you.

Is this another instance of vendors who influence the rules pulling the wool over the eyes of officialdom and us?

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I saw an example of this the other day. Cabbages are quite expensive at the moment, and I was looking at buying half a cabbage to make coleslaw.

I considered two half cabbages, with the price being $4.99 each. One half cabbage was at least double the size of the other.

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This week Coles and Woolies each offered a ‘bunch’ of broccolini on sale for for $2.90 and $2.80 respectively.

Bought one from each. Coles bunch was 160g and Woolies bunch was 200g. A long term check to see if ‘what is a bunch’ might be revealing on the true comparison, or if it is variable from week to week, including for other F&V sold by ‘bunch’.

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Asparagus is the same. A bunch can vary in weight and sometimes there might he a few big spears to a dozen smaller ones.

That’s how they grow. Broadly it doesn’t matter as the size reflects the strength of the shoot which is related to the age of the crown. It isn’t like some produce where small means young and big means old or where either young or old matter. What really matters is freshness and no supermarket asparagus is really fresh as it changes within hours of being cut.

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The crux of the matter is that yes there will be a bunch of 5 thick or 12 thin or a mix, but they should have a roughly consistent weight ++/–. My suspicion is Coleworths might specify differing average or limit weights as their ongoing offers/supplies.

I thought to weigh the broccolini because in hand they were obviously different amounts of serve, equally fresh as one can discern.

An honest question is whether consumers can always trust businesses and especially grocers selling undefined amounts such as ‘bunches’ for comparison shopping or should we perform due diligence to see if that trust is deserved. eg which is a better deal, a $2.80 bunch at Woolies or a $2.90 bunch at Coles, in this case. Will the difference be significant enough to ‘travel’ just for that? Probably not, but if there is a consistent difference it could result in a consumer developing a preference for the ‘better bunch offer’ store.

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This weeks the Coles bunch was right on 200g. The conclusion is one needs to ‘check the bunches’ not just grab one expecting them to be much of a muchness in quantity.

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