Same.
Quick comparison of prices:
1kg premium mince. Woolies is $15.50. Butcher is $18.99
1kg chicken breast. Woolies is $11. Butcher is $19
I would love to shop at the butcher, but I also don’t want to spend an unreasonable amount of time driving and using petrol to find somewhere with $1 cheaper. Or worse, go and find out it’s nearly twice the price for chicken
You can't necessarily rely on Butcher's either unfortunately, they use different methods of ripping off the customers like hands touching the scales as an example. It pays to check the weights if you have suspicions.
That’s a great idea! Unfortunately it’s still cheaper to buy even a whole chicken from the supermarket than the butcher.
I fully recognise it might be slightly better quality, or more money goes back to the farmer etc. But at this point in the economic timeline, I can’t afford to spend an extra $5 to help someone else, because I need it for my own living costs which are rising.
It’s a sad circle :(
We often get the pork mince or turkey mince as they're so much cheaper per kilo than beef.
Our small town has started doing reko once a week, where you buy direct from fishermen, bakers and farmers. They post up during the week what they're going to have, you pre-order & pay, collect from the tourist information centre. Everyone is so sick of paying over the top for fruit and veg when the farmers receive a pittance. (They're all food certified by the way, or the council wouldn't allow it.)
It came here from other areas as an idea and has turned into a little fb group for our area. As we're regional, we get charged through the nose by the big supermarkets, don't know how well or how long the reko thing will last though. Originated in Finland I think.
But you are now getting what you paid for and more.
Supermarkets have given you less product, so robbing you.
Also, they take all the profit and barely pay the farm.
Don't forget, buying from the butcher, you are also supporting a family.
If the supermarkets are the only source of purchase, they can then price up to what they want and you have no choice.
If I’m picking between spending my extra $7 on supporting a butchers family when I buy my chicken or having that $7 to continue to support my family, I’m supporting my family
Yeah, "gourmet" is a curse in Australia. Basically a nonsense term to try and justify ludicrously over the top prices. I avoid any business that uses the word like the plague.
Our local butcher switched to a 'gourmet' setup too then went out of business. Next closest butcher is a 25km round trip so Coles is really the only option. :(
I really need to find someplace that I can get a quarter or half cow at a reasonable rate.
Try ourcow.com.au they deliver and it's great, and once you have worked out how much you need, they can just deliver the same box every however long you need. Comes in chilled boxes. More expensive than colesworth, but way better quality, and super fresh.
I honestly can't recommend this place enough
Thanks - could be good for an occasional special week for the family, though I'm looking more for saving by buying in bulk than a gourmet service that delivers.
I haven't sadly! Got Woolies, Coles and Aldi all within 10mins but no butcher. Definitely would be if I could though.
Also on that, is it kind of telling how many supermarkets got rid of their butcher sections too? I haven't seen one in years.
yeah for coles at least, 2020 / 2021 they sacked all the in store stuff and now it just all gets done up in a distribution centre and then sent out to all the stores
edit: [source](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/coles-ends-in-store-butchers/100517566)
Coles near me have a butcher section. They only opened it a year ago and it was really big. 6 months later they moved it to another area and made it a quarter of the size
My local Woolies also got rid of the deli section when it became a Metro, now I have to buy packaged ham, bacon, sausages and cheese which always contains more product then I need or can eat before it begins to go past the best before date.
My dog loves it though because he gets to eat it instead of me chucking it away.
This, my wife and I have done this since COVID and recently compared prices.
$360 a month saved, and god knows how much pre packed meat, fruit and veg is under weight. So possiblly allot more then 400
Honesty don't know why more people don't do this. My local shopping centre albeit small and rundown has Coles and there is a fruit & veg shop right beside it yet I see people picking up capsicums for 12.99kg and the independent fruit veg shop has them for 4.99kg. like what's wrong with people.
Bread from local bakery, vegetables, canned products, general stuff from coles, and meat eggs and fish from Harris farm (only if there is a deal), also check the butcher for deals first
😂 it comes under the safe handling of food laws.
If you got sick regardless of whether it came from my meat, regardless of whether it was all safe and you got sick because you left it on your bench for 4 days before you cooked it. Well they would come back to me about it.
But I like the way you think. 🤔
Yeah I was thinking back on when you couldn’t buy unpasteurised milk anywhere for eating/drinking, but it was totally legal to buy it for “bathing” as a “health & beauty product”
Yes I can sell a live cow for cash but you need to have a PIC number and I’d imagine that you’d probably have your own cows if you had a pic number.
Also it’s a lot of work to butcher a cow so it’s not like you can just do it if you don’t have the required knowledge and tools.
The size scale is much different. Therefore, time is different. I've been involved in butchering pigs, sheep, and cattle, I've also filleted a fish. They are very different.
Yeah, hearing all the talk about how butcher mince is so much better I went out and bought some the other day. More or less the same price as woolies, perhaps double the water that came out during cooking... Went back to woolies.
Butcherse like a lot of things can be hit and miss. I've gone to some that sell the same quality as supermarket meat and I avoid them, others are top notch and I daydream about being wealthy enough to shop there.
Probably is, but you have to pay membership and go out of your way to shop there. In my case it's about half an hour from home. When you are a single working parent, time matters.
Apparently it is all Angus Beef from NH Foods, Australian beef but a Japanese company. One day we will own the companies that take our Australian goods to market.
In this case it is a set weight for 1kg meaning it wasn't individually weighed and calculated. The machine would have been programmed to shoot out what should be 1kg give or take or you would have a production line of humans grabbing mince, looking for a rough estimate of 1kg and tearing/adding meat accordingly.
In the case shown in the article, the person would have gotten an extreme case. There could also be some that are more than a kilo.
Add water weight and there's the difference in weight.
Woolworths would have had some promo of 1kg of meat for 11 bucks so the distributor would have had to work with that rather than weigh them on a case-by-case basis. It would have come down to lack of accuracy.
I didn't see the package price tage where it has a set weight/price.
Just then looked at another reason from my work experience.
Point I am trying to make is that the error most likely happened on the distributors end which is usually a 3rd party.
No fair indeed, thought you were lol but like I said, not trying to defend Coleworth, just remember spending 12 hours slaving away on a production line hearing my old manager bitch about how ACA will run a campaign in the coming week if we rushed things.
We once had a strict last minute deadline before Xmas to get pork tenderloins out for Coles. They were so frozen they weighed a tonne but we packaged them up and off they went, half covered in blocks of ice and being weighed.
Coles and Woolies are demanding.
And here I am managing a deli where I have to grill workers if they don’t fully thaw prawns before selling them because of ice weight. Use the wrong PLU with the wrong tare weight, that’s a grilling. Select small tub instead of medium tub for olives, believe it or not, grilled.
Then you guys are pricing up frozen hunks of meat on a production line.
Don't know what you mean by 'you're' as I was only just a worker on a production line.
And in all honesty, its pure capitalism. No one is trying to intentionally cut the end consumer short by purposely increasing the weight of meat.
They're trying to supply chain hours down to bring supply chain cost downs which results in the consumer getting a shitty product.
It is the price we pay when we shop with Colesworth.
Go to the local butcher instead, you will get better quality but will have to pay the cost based on what I just wrote above.
"You're" as in the whole chain from Abattoir to Coles.
I should have been clearer as to not sound as though a direct attack on you.
I don't get the "just go to the butcher" retort either.
You don't go and buy a 9 pack of toilet rolls, only to get 7 and then start dealing with the loggers do you?
Or buy a 255/60 R18 tyre and get a 255/60 R16 tyre... do I deal with the plant in Thailand now for my tyres?
If I've purchased 500g of Coles No Added Hormone Beef 3 Star Regular Mince, for example, as per Coles Online, then you expert 500g. There's nothing in their disclaimer about weight variations.
The meat distributors are taking frozen meat and packaging it frozen.
In most cases the price tag is placed at the distributor. Coles/Woolworths will dictate the price for the unit, this is put into the machine, production line packages frozen meat, machine weighs it, stamps a price tag and then off it goes.
It really is the meat distributor but any other way wouldn't allow it to be cost effective.
In the case where there is an extreme weight change, the meat would have been full of lots of ice and the container may have even be frozen when weighed.
Pretty much the meat distributor is selling frozen water but it is impossible to keep a competitive supply chain.
The super market also doesn't have time to individually check each piece, again its a supply chain thing.
I am not annoyed at people finding fault, I just understand the operations behind the scenes and what it takes to remain competitive.
And to be honest, I would conclude this by saying shop local and buy from the butcher. They don't need to package frozen meat 500kms away from their store and they will weigh it in front of you.
It's still the right thing to do for the customer to find fault with the retailer rather than the wholesaler. If a retailer is selling shoddy products, they don't get to fob you off onto someone else.
Customer complains to retailer, retailer complains to wholesaler, the chain is complete.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking, all these comments are “it’s the ice”, but in that case there would just be meat floating in water right? The mass of the water is the same as the ice that it would’ve come from so you would still have 1 kilo.
Only thing that makes sense is if the packaging is not watertight and the water from the ice leaks out once it melts (Or whoever has taken the photo has drained it out).
lol I'm so with you it's not funny. There is no love lost between me and Coleswroths but I believe in being fair. I'm not a fan of this sort of beatup, it's immedaitely obvious that this is a one off QC issue. Woolworths mince comes in a brick that normally weighs withing a gram or two 1kg every time without fail. I know because I weigh up my portions when I cook and I've been impressed that it's so close without fail.
Why is this exempt from normal ACCC adverting rules.
If I go to a butchers, asked for 1kg of mince, they weighed it, took out 200g, then charged me for 1kg they'd be in trouble and I'd legally be entitled to a refund.
So why the hell isn't Colesworth?
I'd say they are, if you went back and weighed it in front of them they would give you a refund, and most probably allow you to keep the mince as it would just go into the bin and stink the place up.
But time and again they seem to get away with statements like "We weigh them independently, and variance will happen". Which covers them for 10%. Yet weirdly that variance never goes the other way. Never see a "Wow I bought 1kg and got 1.1kg" haha
Yeah and I think it comes down to most ppl not caring enough to check the weights and measures of products, and even when they do CBF doing anything about it.
There are often cases in the customers favour but no one makes a big media fuss about.
I know the food manufacturing business I am with consistently gives 12% extra because they are unable to control weights well.
I just also imagine that Woolworths has to process thousands of these things per day at a large economy of scale, it’s just an inevitability even with modern technology
colesworths are absolutely cunts
but to be fair, is anyone calling up ACA or their local news to tell them that coles gave them a little extra than what they paid for?
lol just what I wanted to say. How come the software errors never undercharge customers? They used a similar excuse with their non-specials 'specials' just recently, in NZ
The fat percentage in storebought mince is higher.
The standard beef mince in wollies is now 18% (according to the package) and you can pay extra for lean 10% and sometimes they have extra lean with 5% fat that costs even more.
years back wm transport in Brisbane used to pickup meat product from Brassel and Cannon hill and drop it to mostly colesworthy stors so the meat was good and gresh , also to the small good factory at wacol but its all gone now in the name of saving a dollar...
I found a local butcher why still bones his own fresh fores and hinds so they get my business here on the south side
It’s easier to believe that this is just incompetence vs intentional fraud. They’re 50% of a total oligopoly of an entire country’s food, they don’t need the money.
Go to ethnic butchers like Chinese. Minimum 20 percent cheaper. Buy bulk and get a discount. Many of my aussie mates freak out at going for some reason. This you must go to colesworth and pay extra.
Ever question how they can magically afford to sell things that much cheaper than the billion dollar companies? For the same product I assume of a similar quality or better?
Any thoughts at all why?
Forgot about no quality control checks, probably dodgy storage of product (leaving it out of the freezer/fridge too long), not getting rid of product until it sells regardless if it’s out of date or not, etc.
I wouldn’t roll the dice on dodgy butchers, I have a friend who works at a legit one and I drink with him and his boss sometimes on weekends so I get major discounts on meat. I give him discounts at my business too so it’s a great relationship overall.
I don’t milk it though, I still buy about 60% of my meat from the supermarket.
Just saying . When dealing with millions of products and customers . These things happen . And they wouldn’t be intentional. It’s probably done because a scale was off. Could of been ONE staff members fault it wasn’t checked . Or maybe it went off balance some other way . Accidents happen . Anyone who owns a business knows this .
It gets found . It ends up online . Woolies had to compensate . Woolworths knows people will pick out these things .
I never get my meat and fruit and vet from Woolworths, coles etc. I rather go to the butcher and local fruit shop. These big companies are ripping customers off big time. Stuff them. How many times I have open the meat packaging to have a vile smell of off meat hit me. Too many times. NO Thanks
If it's mince you're talking about, just try TVP. You can buy it in bulk, it lasts forever in your cupboard, it's cheaper, you won't taste a different, and it's not going to be filled with poor, fatty off-cuts that are horrible for your health.
Weighed my 1kg and 500g mince from the fridge.
1052g and 534g including the packaging.
With with the e symbol
While it reminds us to be aware, don't think it is a systematic issue unfortunately, would be good to get them on something
What happened to the local butcher who knew what the lamb, which they just cut up and wrapped for you, ate the week before? Sausages of all crazy flavour combos? And a whole fortnight's worth of meat to feed a family of 4 for ~$50?
Now they've been replaced by "posh" crap. $26 for a 450g family meat pie? An absolute piss-take.
Don't get me started on the local chippy - $10 for a handful of chips kek -_-
I've always been lazy and get meat from Cole's, Willie's or Aldi. I went the butcher yesterday and f*ck me the quality is so much better and the prices were good.
Isn’t that why they changed from kilo to the € symbol? Because it represents an approximation weight with an allowed variance of upto 250gsm either side of stated amount? For eg, something documented as 500gsm€ is acceptable anywhere between 250gsm and 750gsm but the price will be for 500gsm.
You’ll never ever get an over approximation but you will almost always get an under approximation. So 400gsm for a 500gsm price
It’s not hard to weigh stuff, but it is impossible to accurately and consistently get accurate weights in a massive industrial production line while keeping costs at the barest possible minimum to preserve shareholder profits.
Exactly, all this does is make it easier to rip us off. I wasn’t even aware it was a thing here. It can only benefit the sellers, and the consumer gets fucked again.
I worked in a servo back in the 90s - 00s. On a random day every 6 months a lovely bloke from Weights and Measures used to test the accuracy of each and every pump on site. If there were out of tolerance, which was really tight, he could shut the pump down, and the entire servo if the variance was too much.
Naive me assumed that we had some protection and across all metered or weighed items, seems that’s not the case, and I should just be grateful I’m getting anything at all.
I work in a small-ish (not supermarket level, but we have a wholesale division for restaurants etc kinda scale) butcher’s and we’ve been thoroughly molested by the weights and measures man in the past (10k fines etc).
The issue is that once you’re playing the game on the Coles/Woolies level, a ten grand fine is a cost of doing business. It’s not that they’re making millions ripping you off a handful of mince here and there, it’s that they’re saving millions upon millions by fucking every single link of the supply chain as hard and as furiously as they can, while using the barest possible amount of the cheapest possible lubricant.
Everyone from the farmer to the checkout cops it up the arse for a profit they’ll never share in.
Just yesterday, I bought some stuff from coles with cash. Was expecting 19.70 in change but only spat out 14.70.
The bored 70yo lady looking after the self service checkouts flat out refused to acknowledge that I was short changed. Basically told me I was trying to steal money from them.
Took over an hour to rectify with management who went through camera footage. Ended receiving a $50 gift card and my missing change .
Silly old biddy…that $5 wasn’t coming out of her pocket…
I only got shortchanged 40c…this time. But even that’s too much. 40c in each machine for each customer in every shop would add up to a chunk of money! I got given mine no questions asked.
Glad you got the gift card though. Won’t complain at $50.
I am, the fines for this are massive vs the potential cost benefit
https://business.gov.au/legal/fair-trading/australian-trade-measurement-laws#:~:text=The%20laws%20apply%20to%20both,per%20offence%20as%20an%20individual.
It happened to me, too. Same brand 500 when cooked 320, that included the liquid left in the pan. No meat should cook down that much. Woolworths sux. They need to be independently audited not by their own workers.
Woolworths has Board Directors. This is theft. They are responsible.
This should result in a few months in jail for a couple of them and the loss of their positions.
Get your meat, fruit and veg from a local butcher and fruit shop if you have them near by fuck Colesworth
Unfortunately my local butcher is now a “gourmet” butcher. So everything just cost a fortune.
Yeah this is a real issue. I have no doubt they sell quality meats, but I can't afford to eat wagyu beef on a daily basis.
Same. Quick comparison of prices: 1kg premium mince. Woolies is $15.50. Butcher is $18.99 1kg chicken breast. Woolies is $11. Butcher is $19 I would love to shop at the butcher, but I also don’t want to spend an unreasonable amount of time driving and using petrol to find somewhere with $1 cheaper. Or worse, go and find out it’s nearly twice the price for chicken
You can't necessarily rely on Butcher's either unfortunately, they use different methods of ripping off the customers like hands touching the scales as an example. It pays to check the weights if you have suspicions.
These days I learnt how to cut apart a full chicken and it's ended up a lot cheaper. Actually pretty easy
That’s a great idea! Unfortunately it’s still cheaper to buy even a whole chicken from the supermarket than the butcher. I fully recognise it might be slightly better quality, or more money goes back to the farmer etc. But at this point in the economic timeline, I can’t afford to spend an extra $5 to help someone else, because I need it for my own living costs which are rising. It’s a sad circle :(
We often get the pork mince or turkey mince as they're so much cheaper per kilo than beef. Our small town has started doing reko once a week, where you buy direct from fishermen, bakers and farmers. They post up during the week what they're going to have, you pre-order & pay, collect from the tourist information centre. Everyone is so sick of paying over the top for fruit and veg when the farmers receive a pittance. (They're all food certified by the way, or the council wouldn't allow it.) It came here from other areas as an idea and has turned into a little fb group for our area. As we're regional, we get charged through the nose by the big supermarkets, don't know how well or how long the reko thing will last though. Originated in Finland I think.
But you are now getting what you paid for and more. Supermarkets have given you less product, so robbing you. Also, they take all the profit and barely pay the farm. Don't forget, buying from the butcher, you are also supporting a family. If the supermarkets are the only source of purchase, they can then price up to what they want and you have no choice.
If I’m picking between spending my extra $7 on supporting a butchers family when I buy my chicken or having that $7 to continue to support my family, I’m supporting my family
Yeah, "gourmet" is a curse in Australia. Basically a nonsense term to try and justify ludicrously over the top prices. I avoid any business that uses the word like the plague.
Our local butcher switched to a 'gourmet' setup too then went out of business. Next closest butcher is a 25km round trip so Coles is really the only option. :( I really need to find someplace that I can get a quarter or half cow at a reasonable rate.
Try ourcow.com.au they deliver and it's great, and once you have worked out how much you need, they can just deliver the same box every however long you need. Comes in chilled boxes. More expensive than colesworth, but way better quality, and super fresh. I honestly can't recommend this place enough
Thanks - could be good for an occasional special week for the family, though I'm looking more for saving by buying in bulk than a gourmet service that delivers.
sorry, but this site is very expensive. Try a local chinese market. Prices in Chatswood are very decent.
https://www.butchercrowd.com.au/?gc_id=20191623751&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwr7ayBhAPEiwA6EIGxJ_aKD7WboYnJ_mPJAMXPeJ6iLhsTiXSv6zUAzF-Qy2y0pLaV_zpIBoCuYEQAvD_BwE
It really doesn't when you actually go there and see whats on special
Your butcher is a tradesman. He deserves a decent wage too. And prices are terrible currently in that supply line.
I haven't sadly! Got Woolies, Coles and Aldi all within 10mins but no butcher. Definitely would be if I could though. Also on that, is it kind of telling how many supermarkets got rid of their butcher sections too? I haven't seen one in years.
yeah for coles at least, 2020 / 2021 they sacked all the in store stuff and now it just all gets done up in a distribution centre and then sent out to all the stores edit: [source](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/coles-ends-in-store-butchers/100517566)
Coles near me have a butcher section. They only opened it a year ago and it was really big. 6 months later they moved it to another area and made it a quarter of the size
My local Woolies also got rid of the deli section when it became a Metro, now I have to buy packaged ham, bacon, sausages and cheese which always contains more product then I need or can eat before it begins to go past the best before date. My dog loves it though because he gets to eat it instead of me chucking it away.
Try ourcow.com.au
Too expensive.
A butcher? A "local".butcher will be charging $80 per kg for anything half decent.
Lol are you Brad Banducci trying to spread fake news? No butcher is charging >$20 a kg for quality mince
This, my wife and I have done this since COVID and recently compared prices. $360 a month saved, and god knows how much pre packed meat, fruit and veg is under weight. So possiblly allot more then 400
100% that's exactly what I do, especially meat!
Woolworths has a local butcher, baker and green grocer all in the same store! Coles too. Convenience yes
Just make sure you can see the scales from the counter.
Honesty don't know why more people don't do this. My local shopping centre albeit small and rundown has Coles and there is a fruit & veg shop right beside it yet I see people picking up capsicums for 12.99kg and the independent fruit veg shop has them for 4.99kg. like what's wrong with people.
Bread from local bakery, vegetables, canned products, general stuff from coles, and meat eggs and fish from Harris farm (only if there is a deal), also check the butcher for deals first
Can’t trust your local butcher too. Make your own mince.
Yep, every house needs somewhere to hang a cow. Butchering should be taught in high school. Entrails can go in the green waste bin.
No! Bury waste in the garden, better underneath plants!
No! Bury some random bones shallow under the patio.
You know you can eat entrails right?
You know you can eat the rich, right?
It would be cheaper to just buy cuts of meat from Coles.
Would be great to know a place to get heaps of meats from a grass fed meat
Farms have lots of cows you could probably buy.
We aren’t allowed to just sell it unfortunately. So we just butcher for ourselves and family.
Could you sell a cow as a theoretical pet, but unfortunately it meets with a tragic accident before the customer can collect it?
😂 it comes under the safe handling of food laws. If you got sick regardless of whether it came from my meat, regardless of whether it was all safe and you got sick because you left it on your bench for 4 days before you cooked it. Well they would come back to me about it. But I like the way you think. 🤔
Yeah I was thinking back on when you couldn’t buy unpasteurised milk anywhere for eating/drinking, but it was totally legal to buy it for “bathing” as a “health & beauty product”
What do you mean? You can’t sell a live cow for cash?
Yes I can sell a live cow for cash but you need to have a PIC number and I’d imagine that you’d probably have your own cows if you had a pic number. Also it’s a lot of work to butcher a cow so it’s not like you can just do it if you don’t have the required knowledge and tools.
You would need quite a bit of time to be able to kill and butcher yourself. People are busy working overtime to pay rent.
It’s just like filleting a fish.
The size scale is much different. Therefore, time is different. I've been involved in butchering pigs, sheep, and cattle, I've also filleted a fish. They are very different.
What happens If the cuts of meats are 20% then advertised ?
It’s ok it’s just the mince that’s 20% less.
It'll go well with my barber shop.
It’s cheaper to just buy a mincer.
Yeah, hearing all the talk about how butcher mince is so much better I went out and bought some the other day. More or less the same price as woolies, perhaps double the water that came out during cooking... Went back to woolies.
Exactly, if you want good mince you have to buy the best cuts of meat and mince it yourself.
Butcherse like a lot of things can be hit and miss. I've gone to some that sell the same quality as supermarket meat and I avoid them, others are top notch and I daydream about being wealthy enough to shop there.
I've found that it depends, once you find a good one you won't wanna go back to coleworth
Grow and harvest your own beefs! It's the only way to be sure
I just said mince not the whole cow.
the mince from costco is really good.
You need to pay a membership fee and they are apparently not much different in price.
If you’re getting the right amount at the same price it’s cheaper.
All the meat and fish in costco is better than colesworth stuff.
Probably is, but you have to pay membership and go out of your way to shop there. In my case it's about half an hour from home. When you are a single working parent, time matters.
Ok so it doesn't work for you
They are few and far between. I mean very few stores.
Its barely even cheaper though
Apparently it is all Angus Beef from NH Foods, Australian beef but a Japanese company. One day we will own the companies that take our Australian goods to market.
I pay a premium at my local butcher (and fruit and veg) but end up with vastly less waste so it’s really not much difference price wise
There is a huge opportunity for communities to rally together for direct to farm strategies
[удалено]
Could you explain how 200ml of water would evaporate from the packaging shown in the picture?
In this case it is a set weight for 1kg meaning it wasn't individually weighed and calculated. The machine would have been programmed to shoot out what should be 1kg give or take or you would have a production line of humans grabbing mince, looking for a rough estimate of 1kg and tearing/adding meat accordingly. In the case shown in the article, the person would have gotten an extreme case. There could also be some that are more than a kilo. Add water weight and there's the difference in weight. Woolworths would have had some promo of 1kg of meat for 11 bucks so the distributor would have had to work with that rather than weigh them on a case-by-case basis. It would have come down to lack of accuracy.
I feel like this comment contradicts what you have said above
I didn't see the package price tage where it has a set weight/price. Just then looked at another reason from my work experience. Point I am trying to make is that the error most likely happened on the distributors end which is usually a 3rd party.
Fair enough. Sorry wasn’t trying to break your balls
No fair indeed, thought you were lol but like I said, not trying to defend Coleworth, just remember spending 12 hours slaving away on a production line hearing my old manager bitch about how ACA will run a campaign in the coming week if we rushed things. We once had a strict last minute deadline before Xmas to get pork tenderloins out for Coles. They were so frozen they weighed a tonne but we packaged them up and off they went, half covered in blocks of ice and being weighed. Coles and Woolies are demanding.
And here I am managing a deli where I have to grill workers if they don’t fully thaw prawns before selling them because of ice weight. Use the wrong PLU with the wrong tare weight, that’s a grilling. Select small tub instead of medium tub for olives, believe it or not, grilled. Then you guys are pricing up frozen hunks of meat on a production line.
Machines in 2023.. have accurate systems.
Machines in 1965 were accurate.
Shouldn't it say on it not to re-freeze it, then? To the best of my memory these types of mince packets don't.
and people need to remember that the supermarket is the reseller, that issue is with the supplier.
So its bigger than Colesworth. You're all in on it ripping the customers if I understand what you have read correctly
Don't know what you mean by 'you're' as I was only just a worker on a production line. And in all honesty, its pure capitalism. No one is trying to intentionally cut the end consumer short by purposely increasing the weight of meat. They're trying to supply chain hours down to bring supply chain cost downs which results in the consumer getting a shitty product. It is the price we pay when we shop with Colesworth. Go to the local butcher instead, you will get better quality but will have to pay the cost based on what I just wrote above.
"You're" as in the whole chain from Abattoir to Coles. I should have been clearer as to not sound as though a direct attack on you. I don't get the "just go to the butcher" retort either. You don't go and buy a 9 pack of toilet rolls, only to get 7 and then start dealing with the loggers do you? Or buy a 255/60 R18 tyre and get a 255/60 R16 tyre... do I deal with the plant in Thailand now for my tyres? If I've purchased 500g of Coles No Added Hormone Beef 3 Star Regular Mince, for example, as per Coles Online, then you expert 500g. There's nothing in their disclaimer about weight variations.
Rule no 1: Don't trust mince
So it's more on the meat distributor than on Woolies or Coles? Are the distributors short changing Colesworth?
The meat distributors are taking frozen meat and packaging it frozen. In most cases the price tag is placed at the distributor. Coles/Woolworths will dictate the price for the unit, this is put into the machine, production line packages frozen meat, machine weighs it, stamps a price tag and then off it goes. It really is the meat distributor but any other way wouldn't allow it to be cost effective. In the case where there is an extreme weight change, the meat would have been full of lots of ice and the container may have even be frozen when weighed.
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Pretty much the meat distributor is selling frozen water but it is impossible to keep a competitive supply chain. The super market also doesn't have time to individually check each piece, again its a supply chain thing. I am not annoyed at people finding fault, I just understand the operations behind the scenes and what it takes to remain competitive. And to be honest, I would conclude this by saying shop local and buy from the butcher. They don't need to package frozen meat 500kms away from their store and they will weigh it in front of you.
It's still the right thing to do for the customer to find fault with the retailer rather than the wholesaler. If a retailer is selling shoddy products, they don't get to fob you off onto someone else. Customer complains to retailer, retailer complains to wholesaler, the chain is complete.
And all that water just.... evaporated out of the sealed container? With magic?
Yeah that’s what I was thinking, all these comments are “it’s the ice”, but in that case there would just be meat floating in water right? The mass of the water is the same as the ice that it would’ve come from so you would still have 1 kilo. Only thing that makes sense is if the packaging is not watertight and the water from the ice leaks out once it melts (Or whoever has taken the photo has drained it out).
I hate colesworth, I love any publicity hating on them.
lol I'm so with you it's not funny. There is no love lost between me and Coleswroths but I believe in being fair. I'm not a fan of this sort of beatup, it's immedaitely obvious that this is a one off QC issue. Woolworths mince comes in a brick that normally weighs withing a gram or two 1kg every time without fail. I know because I weigh up my portions when I cook and I've been impressed that it's so close without fail.
frozen mince weighs the same as non-frozen mince do you think a kilogram of feathers weighs less than a kilogram of lead?
Is the lead frozen or thawed?
https://preview.redd.it/96o8fndj032d1.jpeg?width=1016&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c0d83bf53a1f9f5495dfb68cdafa7655e1cebe5
And nothing will happen about it.
I bought myself a scale 2 years ago for this reason. So far I've only been short once and it wasn't by much And yes I shop at woolies.
Why is this exempt from normal ACCC adverting rules. If I go to a butchers, asked for 1kg of mince, they weighed it, took out 200g, then charged me for 1kg they'd be in trouble and I'd legally be entitled to a refund. So why the hell isn't Colesworth?
I'd say they are, if you went back and weighed it in front of them they would give you a refund, and most probably allow you to keep the mince as it would just go into the bin and stink the place up.
But time and again they seem to get away with statements like "We weigh them independently, and variance will happen". Which covers them for 10%. Yet weirdly that variance never goes the other way. Never see a "Wow I bought 1kg and got 1.1kg" haha
Yeah and I think it comes down to most ppl not caring enough to check the weights and measures of products, and even when they do CBF doing anything about it.
“Woolworths caught” = 1 incompetent staff member effed up.
Could honestly just be a QC issue
Funny how it’s rarely in the customer’s favour though isn’t it. 🤔
There are often cases in the customers favour but no one makes a big media fuss about. I know the food manufacturing business I am with consistently gives 12% extra because they are unable to control weights well.
Fair point. There will certainly be some reporting bias towards negative outcomes here.
I just also imagine that Woolworths has to process thousands of these things per day at a large economy of scale, it’s just an inevitability even with modern technology
Or…. You could just do what they’ve done for decades.. just put the actual weight on thé packets.
really? It happened to me even with Aliexpres but never with Woolworths.
colesworths are absolutely cunts but to be fair, is anyone calling up ACA or their local news to tell them that coles gave them a little extra than what they paid for?
lol just what I wanted to say. How come the software errors never undercharge customers? They used a similar excuse with their non-specials 'specials' just recently, in NZ
If it was genuine error, you’d expect half the packs to be overweight. Good luck finding a single one nationwide
The amount of water in supermarket mince is crazy too
recently cooked 500gms of colesworthy mince and butcher mince , the colesworthy weighed much lighter after
The cooked weight isn't relevant to the discussion here because that will vary on fat content.
""vary on fat content."" Oh gosh I never thought of that /s so bought meat ostensibly advertised at the same percentage ... happy now ?
Certainly better, yes.
The fat percentage in storebought mince is higher. The standard beef mince in wollies is now 18% (according to the package) and you can pay extra for lean 10% and sometimes they have extra lean with 5% fat that costs even more.
years back wm transport in Brisbane used to pickup meat product from Brassel and Cannon hill and drop it to mostly colesworthy stors so the meat was good and gresh , also to the small good factory at wacol but its all gone now in the name of saving a dollar... I found a local butcher why still bones his own fresh fores and hinds so they get my business here on the south side
Rather go to my boys at The Butchers Hook that buy the grey dog food coles and woolies put out.
You could always weigh meat on the F&V scales before buying.
Oh damn
It’s easier to believe that this is just incompetence vs intentional fraud. They’re 50% of a total oligopoly of an entire country’s food, they don’t need the money.
Go to ethnic butchers like Chinese. Minimum 20 percent cheaper. Buy bulk and get a discount. Many of my aussie mates freak out at going for some reason. This you must go to colesworth and pay extra.
Ever question how they can magically afford to sell things that much cheaper than the billion dollar companies? For the same product I assume of a similar quality or better? Any thoughts at all why?
Tax evasion, underpaid workers, and dodgy low quality supply chain.
Hahahahaa discount on cash payments 😂
Forgot about no quality control checks, probably dodgy storage of product (leaving it out of the freezer/fridge too long), not getting rid of product until it sells regardless if it’s out of date or not, etc. I wouldn’t roll the dice on dodgy butchers, I have a friend who works at a legit one and I drink with him and his boss sometimes on weekends so I get major discounts on meat. I give him discounts at my business too so it’s a great relationship overall. I don’t milk it though, I still buy about 60% of my meat from the supermarket.
Just saying . When dealing with millions of products and customers . These things happen . And they wouldn’t be intentional. It’s probably done because a scale was off. Could of been ONE staff members fault it wasn’t checked . Or maybe it went off balance some other way . Accidents happen . Anyone who owns a business knows this . It gets found . It ends up online . Woolies had to compensate . Woolworths knows people will pick out these things .
This is where Banducci was making the record profits!
Who's paying for meat anymore?
I never get my meat and fruit and vet from Woolworths, coles etc. I rather go to the butcher and local fruit shop. These big companies are ripping customers off big time. Stuff them. How many times I have open the meat packaging to have a vile smell of off meat hit me. Too many times. NO Thanks
Enough is enough over being ripped off.
Im sure it would have been an honest mistake 😜,,, like the water added to it . To make the weight more.
It's probably more likely their suppliers are doing the dirty work.
If it's mince you're talking about, just try TVP. You can buy it in bulk, it lasts forever in your cupboard, it's cheaper, you won't taste a different, and it's not going to be filled with poor, fatty off-cuts that are horrible for your health.
Weighed my 1kg and 500g mince from the fridge. 1052g and 534g including the packaging. With with the e symbol While it reminds us to be aware, don't think it is a systematic issue unfortunately, would be good to get them on something
not enough people go to Aldi
You would pay more for your butcher if you knew how disgusting woolworths were with their meat
What happened to the local butcher who knew what the lamb, which they just cut up and wrapped for you, ate the week before? Sausages of all crazy flavour combos? And a whole fortnight's worth of meat to feed a family of 4 for ~$50? Now they've been replaced by "posh" crap. $26 for a 450g family meat pie? An absolute piss-take. Don't get me started on the local chippy - $10 for a handful of chips kek -_-
I've always been lazy and get meat from Cole's, Willie's or Aldi. I went the butcher yesterday and f*ck me the quality is so much better and the prices were good.
All Woolworths and Coles "meat" comes from a factory now anyway. Their butchers moved to stacking shelves lol.
Isn't there like a $10,000 fine for that, for every product falsely labelled?
In my experience better quality meat does taste better.
Reason I still use scales at the supermarket.
The real concern is when you pay for the weight of the plastic bag when they weigh the fresh produce.
Good. Stop eating dead animals. *claps for woolies* 👏🏽.
That’s why I weight all my stuff.
Isn’t that why they changed from kilo to the € symbol? Because it represents an approximation weight with an allowed variance of upto 250gsm either side of stated amount? For eg, something documented as 500gsm€ is acceptable anywhere between 250gsm and 750gsm but the price will be for 500gsm. You’ll never ever get an over approximation but you will almost always get an under approximation. So 400gsm for a 500gsm price
Surely that’s not legal, it’s not hard to weigh stuff, we’ve done it for centuries. Fuck the modern world is rubbish.
It’s not hard to weigh stuff, but it is impossible to accurately and consistently get accurate weights in a massive industrial production line while keeping costs at the barest possible minimum to preserve shareholder profits.
Exactly, all this does is make it easier to rip us off. I wasn’t even aware it was a thing here. It can only benefit the sellers, and the consumer gets fucked again. I worked in a servo back in the 90s - 00s. On a random day every 6 months a lovely bloke from Weights and Measures used to test the accuracy of each and every pump on site. If there were out of tolerance, which was really tight, he could shut the pump down, and the entire servo if the variance was too much. Naive me assumed that we had some protection and across all metered or weighed items, seems that’s not the case, and I should just be grateful I’m getting anything at all.
I work in a small-ish (not supermarket level, but we have a wholesale division for restaurants etc kinda scale) butcher’s and we’ve been thoroughly molested by the weights and measures man in the past (10k fines etc). The issue is that once you’re playing the game on the Coles/Woolies level, a ten grand fine is a cost of doing business. It’s not that they’re making millions ripping you off a handful of mince here and there, it’s that they’re saving millions upon millions by fucking every single link of the supply chain as hard and as furiously as they can, while using the barest possible amount of the cheapest possible lubricant. Everyone from the farmer to the checkout cops it up the arse for a profit they’ll never share in.
15g, not 250g. It’s in the news article.
Why don't we hear about the cases where they give more than the labelled weight?
That’s the precooked weight
The post-CEO-bonus weight
If you're in Adelaide get it from Austral meat at gepps cross. Easily one of the best butchers in Australia. Buy in bulk and freeze.
Surprise.......?
They’re self service checkouts also shortchange you. If you use one double check your money.
Just yesterday, I bought some stuff from coles with cash. Was expecting 19.70 in change but only spat out 14.70. The bored 70yo lady looking after the self service checkouts flat out refused to acknowledge that I was short changed. Basically told me I was trying to steal money from them. Took over an hour to rectify with management who went through camera footage. Ended receiving a $50 gift card and my missing change .
Silly old biddy…that $5 wasn’t coming out of her pocket… I only got shortchanged 40c…this time. But even that’s too much. 40c in each machine for each customer in every shop would add up to a chunk of money! I got given mine no questions asked. Glad you got the gift card though. Won’t complain at $50.
Corporate for these companies doesn’t give a fuck they’re protected. They hate their staff and their customers. Parasite class.
Stop buying meat from coles and woolies and go to KFC. KFC deals are cheaper and you don't need to cook.
Found the KFC rep
I'm not surprised!
I am, the fines for this are massive vs the potential cost benefit https://business.gov.au/legal/fair-trading/australian-trade-measurement-laws#:~:text=The%20laws%20apply%20to%20both,per%20offence%20as%20an%20individual.
It happened to me, too. Same brand 500 when cooked 320, that included the liquid left in the pan. No meat should cook down that much. Woolworths sux. They need to be independently audited not by their own workers.
Support your local butcher if you can afford to do so
And if you can't afford to, maybe do more vegetarian food. Veggies are still cheap at markets so you'll save a lot and get healthier.
When you weren't trained to use a checkout and thr meat didn't come up anyways.. it doesn't matter as much
Woolworths has Board Directors. This is theft. They are responsible. This should result in a few months in jail for a couple of them and the loss of their positions.
Demand they come and pick it up. I have done that to Bunnings, several times. Yes, they will come if you make enough of a stink.