Thanks for the info - I will make a trip to the Coles store & have a talk to them about it. I might have to weigh the product before I buy to gauge whether it is the correct weight. I will definitely put in a complaint if it happens again.
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While this looks shonky as, you also need to verify that you are paying a fixed amount for the package, rather than a rate per weight. That is, consumers should be able to rely on the labeling but if you are paying a rate per weight then you are not being ripped off as such - although whoever gets to eat the results might feel ripped off. 
While that is always true, Coles and Woolies (plus Aldi, IGA, and most F&V shops) berry punnets are sold as having a specific weight, usually 125, 250, 300 or 500g for the posted price, no pesky ‘e-weight’ averaging shown so the net should be the shown weight or more. It would be a rare day for an individual Coles store to price them per 100g. Strawberries are $1.50 at local Coles for a 250g punnet today. Cheaper than chips!
One might expect a punnet significantly below the stated weight would have been obviously under-filled compared to the other punnets on the display. It pays to pay attention when picking any prepackaged products sold by a fixed weight.
Be it a fruit, veg, meat, or whatever the chances a natural product is going to be at the weight are small, expecting a bit over is the norm, maybe a few grams under from time to time, but significantly under? Automated packaging systems are not infallible, but @Anne2’s experience could have been so simple as picking up a punnet that another customer took a few ‘samples’ from without the expected purchase.
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As far as I’ve observed, farmer down the road, strawberry containers are hand packed. There is a method to fill each which results in a nominal weight, typically over. The time value benefit of optimising is not worth the effort. Approximation of the words of the lady organising the punnets. She also only checked filled punnets at random for weight.
At $1.50 retail for a 250gm punnet the farm gate price will be hurting.
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I had actually bought 3 punnets (the deal was 3 for $4.50) & each one weighed around the 100g mark. They weren’t advertised as a “per weight” item rather multiple packs for a discounted price. I would not have weighed them had I not decided to check the weight as I needed a certain quantity for the recipe I was making. I needed 320g so thought that 2 x 250g punnets would well & truly cover my needs but was shocked to discover that I would actually need to use the 3 punnets. They were cheap however I feel that it is very misleading to state a net weight of 250g if it is really only 100g.
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Assuming you are comfortable your scale is accurate and was not accidentally zeroed with a weight on it (not suggesting, just adding it before anyone else mentions it), and the batteries are good…
You should also lodge a formal complaint with the manager, not just get a refund. Get his/her name and ask what their process for rectifying the QA failure is going to be. Be sure they write it while you are reporting, or write a ‘letter of complaint’ and give it to them.
Since it seems rife, at least in that shipment, be sure to send a complaint to the ‘regulator’, linked above.
In both cases include the lot number and use by dates on the punnet as a reference. One underweight is forgivable, 3 not so much.
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Just for interest, what approx 110gm of strawberries (deduct the container weight of approx 10gm) look like in a 250gm container. Ashburn Farms product are available from a wide range of Woolies supermarkets.
If you are wondering Ashburn did not short change the customer. I took one for the team and ate the missing contents to get closer to the strawberry target. Just one more, but which one?
It should be very obvious if a 250gm container is being short filled.
P.S.
I was saving the last few to share a glass or two of bubbles - brut.
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Absolutely disgraceful.
Well done @mark_m! Now being the proud owner of a 250g punnet of strawberries I replicated your experiment and 6 strawberries, not all so plump as your own, was just over the 100g mark and filled about 50% of the tray.
@Anne2 indicated she had photos, and might be happy to post them? It would be interesting to see hers versus yours and consider the potential for what went amiss in her purchase.
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Whilst at our local shopping centre this afternoon, I weighed 1 x 350gm and 3 x 250gm packs of strawberries on the Wedderburn analogue scales in the fresh produce section in Coles.
All were the correct weight as far as one can determine with these types of scales.
I also weighed 3 x 250gm packs of strawberries on the same model of scales at Woollies.
1 pack was the correct weight and the other 2 packs were a fraction under.
So I have just bought 8 punnets of strawberries (250g) from Woolies & weighed them & can happily report they are over the indicated weight! I have attached the photos of both the Coles bought & lastly the Woolies lot from this morning. The Twin View Berries is from Coles & the A&A Juicy Berries is from Woolies. 
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Thanks so much for adding that.
ASIC has an entry for a ‘Twinview Berries’ being registered as a business name in 2018, but without any detail.
They appear to supply more groceries than just Coles as ascertained from ad hits from Google. There is no web presence (a Twin View Berries facebook page is a US raspberry farm). ‘Driving’ Old Gympie Road on Google Maps shows what appear to be multiple berry farms along the road but there are no discernible signs or street numbering, so overall it appears ‘Twin View’ are not interested in contact from consumers.
It almost seems as if your Twin View Berries are hollow because of the weight. Do you still have them as evidence or did you use them on Friday(?)? Are they ‘faulty’ in any way on inspection? Please let us know Coles response.
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Although this is an old topic I found some companies are fairly tolerant with their tolerances and stand behind AQS not behind customers.
We buy John West Barra from Coles most every week. It is labelled as 255g(e) and over time have never had a problem with any +/- until yesterday. Opening the packet it looked almost snack sized than dinner sized so I weighed it. 235g. There was more water than normal in the package.
I emailed Simplot (John West) with the details. Their web form has a character limit short enough suggesting they may not want to hear from consumers, but contact them I did. I was gobsmacked with their reply to my complaint about the underweight, as follows.
Thank you for your email regarding the weight of the John West Barramundi fillets.
The product you have purchased has been packed to AQS in Australia
Average Quantity System | Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
Per the standard, the John West Barramundi 255g can have a tolerance (T1 T2) as set out below
T1 9g means pack allowance to 246g
T2 18g means pack allowance to 237g
The product with the weight of 255g is packed to tolerance of T1, indicating it was packed to specification.
The product with the weight of 235g seems to be under the tolerance of T2, however, if you include the liquid in the soaker pad it would be above T2 tolerance, otherwise the weight control system used in the factory would not apply a label to the product.
While I understand we don’t eat the soaker pad at the time of packing all liquid would remain inside the fish portions. Drip loss is a natural cause in pack over shelf life.
Based on the AQS the products are within specification.
Their attention to customer relationships seem pretty old school FU to this consumer. At about $47 a kilo that bit of water getting them over the ‘T2’ is pretty expensive, and not nearly as satisfying as a bite of fish.
We will be looking for an alternative product, on principle. This is the first time we have ever complained about a product at the margins where they cited chapter and verse of the AQS making it all OK in their corporate eyes.
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@BrendanMays, a suggestion for a Choice project.
I have been paying more attention to things we buy with an ‘e’ weight. Without rehashing what has been posted previously it appears the ‘formula’ is an international gift to business since the tolerance (T1, T2) as described (at least in Australia) anecdotally seems to be implemented as
packing max → labelled weight(e) not to be exceeded excepting as an anomaly
packing weight target = max of ‘T1’, min of ‘T2’ suggesting it is midpoint of (T1, T2)
There is no suggestion that natural products would normally be exactly at an ‘e’ weight, but I have a suspicion the packers intentionally target a ‘not to exceed’ while taking advantage of the ‘T1, T2’ allowable variations, noting AQS provides a 97.5% assurance that goods are the correct quantity within the prescribed tolerances.
I emailed government asking if they audit companies (22/10/2021) for average packing weight records. I’ll add the reply when received. The web form is limited to 200 characters suggesting they might not be so keen to engage with citizens.
→ edit: A gent rang a few hours later. See my subsequent post.
In our short anecdotal experience checking our purchases, almost every packet of everything has been short weighted of the labelled ‘e’ weight with the John West fish being an outlier at the hairy margin; only one packet of anything was 2g higher than the stated weight. My scale is known to be reliable within +/- 2g.
Arguments about lost water/moisture and what is in the soak pad ring hollow when a piece of [whatever] is obviously and visually smaller than expected from experience, accompanied by lots of water one could be suspicious got added to get it over the T2. The soak pad itself weights a few grams too.
It would be interesting to get a panel of consumers to weigh every ‘e’ weight product they buy and record the labelled weight and the net weight shown by their own scale. The absolute values (accuracy) of their scales are not as important as the trends of under or over the ‘e’ weight stated. How to treat water, an aspect for discussion for those who think the idea is worthy to taking forward.
In contrast to the fish portions mince has been within +/- 2g at 500g most every time. Different products, different companies.
Are some products or companies more consistent and trustworthy?
Business wins AQS. What about consumers? Are we just ‘extra profit margins’ for some of them, or is my brief experience an anomaly? If I only ever checked mince in my experience there would be no worries. But for products like fish or meat portions and F&V where product is not so easy to ‘measure out’?
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Nice detective work.
I’ll definitely pass this on for more attention 
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E-weight or AQS.
Is another line of enquiry establishing how many consumers actually know what an e-weight is or pay any attention to the symbol? If not for the prior discussions here over time I’d be none the wiser.
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AQS weight. A gent from the NMI rang and we had a good chat. Very good. It seems the company records are not audited but the actual product is sampled, 100 to 125 examples being typical per sample.
It was reinforced net weight of prepackaged product includes all liquids in the pack, but no packaging. Still my curiosity remains as a random 100 or even 1000 checks might not catch consistent ‘gaming’, or might do an excellent job. Benefit of doubt? Or hope for verification through a consumer project?
edit: We have often wondered why fish sold and weighed at the counter was more expensive per kg than the same fish in prepacks, my understanding is if one buys a 1kg(e) prepack of frozen fish the net weight includes everything except the packaging but the ‘fresh’ fish at the counter has to be thawed because it is sold by weight not including the ice (water).
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Re the fish. I rarely purchase fish from supermarket deli counters, but when I do, I request it as frozen (I don’t trust the freshness of the thawed version; also there appears to be a wider range of product than than is available in the prepacks). To the best of my knowledge, I have always been charged the ‘thawed’ price for the frozen version…
It appears that I have been ‘ripped off’ ???
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A notice at Woolies regarding frozen seafood which I posted in another topic.
Our local Woolies usually has a good variety of Aussie fresh fish at reasonable prices so no need to buy thawed fish which is normally imported.
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