As we move into the holiday season, stores are filling up with aisles of confectionery offerings – chocolates, candies, pastries, and other goodies. At a time when consumers are concerned about the amount of sweets they eat, it can be especially challenging when one sees giant boxes of chocolates and mountains of candy canes around every corner.
According to the National Confectioners Association, “the chocolate and candy industry is providing more information about what’s in our products and bringing more transparency, choice and portion guidance options to consumers seeking to manage their sugar intake – whether that’s buying candy for family celebrations at home, picking up a treat to share with friends, or treating yourself on the way out of the store.”
The organization cites statistics like 85% of chocolate and candy sold today comes in packs that contain 200 calories or less – whether that’s individually wrapped products or multipacks that contain smaller packages inside. They also note that from Thanksgiving through to New Year’s Day, more than half of Americans gift chocolate and candy to friends and family.
But it’s just not consumers who need to monitor portion control; it’s also food processors. If you are in the food processing industry you need to ensure that the amount in the package when the consumer purchases it, matches the amount noted on the label. There are regulations and consumer expectancy that must be met.
In the U.S., the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) defines the Maximum Allowable Variation of packaged products (Ref Handbook 133 NIST Revised 2016). In Europe, the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID) regulations define the performance of checkweighers used in weighing products for sale to consumers. Other countries and regions have similar standards and requirements.
Here’s an excerpt on the scope of the US NIST regulations:
Routine verification of the net contents of packages is an important part of any weights and measures program to facilitate value comparison and fair competition. Consumers have the right to expect packages to bear accurate net content information. Those manufacturers whose products are sold in packages have the right to expect that their competitors will be required to adhere to the same laws and regulations. The procedures in this handbook are recommended for use to verify the net quantity of contents of packages kept, offered, or exposed for sale, or sold by weight, measure (including volume, and dimensions), or count at any location (e.g., at the point-of-pack, in storage warehouses, retail stores, and wholesale outlets).
The NIST document goes on to say that an effective program will typically include testing at each of the following levels: point-of-pack, wholesale, and retail.
If you are in the food processing industry, a checkweigher is a crucial component of your quality control program to help meet the regulations.
As the name suggests, a food checkweigher is equipment used for reliable weight control to check and confirm that the weight of food goods inline or after packaging during final inspection against a predefined weight limit specified on the package. They can also count and reject for a seamless quality control solution even in rugged plant environments. A checkweigher weighs every product in motion, so they are useful for qualitative food inspection as significant variations in product weight may be indicative of missing components – helping to confirm that your products match the as-stated weight on packaging labels, and helping to ensure compliance with regional and international package weight standards.
Checkweighers can also help reduce the risk of consumer disappointment followed by backlash on social media. Can you imagine a parent who has purchased sweet goodies for their children and finding out that they are short one or two items on the eve of a holiday? Or if a party host has carefully planned out the amount of desserts needed, but unexpectedly falls short before the party is over? You’ve lost your credibility with the customer, who may post about their bad experience with your product on Facebook or twitter. (Read How Social Media Can Damage Your Food Brand.)
Not only do checkweighers help with regulation compliance and meeting customer expectations, but they also support productivity, throughput, and the bottom line. Checkweighing technology provides a repeatable and precise measure of food weight to minimize product giveaway. A consumer may not complain about getting more than they paid for, but every extra ounce eats into company profits.
And that’s not sweet at all.
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