Mercadona chicken tray: 200 grams of air and a weight that doesn't add up
A shopper in Spain found a 200-gram gap between the labelled and actual weight of a Mercadona chicken tray. Labelling error or commercial trick?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Mercadona charges for 200 grams of air in its chicken tray: the weight that doesn't add up
A shopper has uncovered a discrepancy that smells like a scandal: her chicken tray from the supermarket was labelled 587 grams net, but on her home scale it barely reached 418. The difference, 200 grams, is a fifth of a kilo. Scale error or selling air by the pound?
The maths is simple. The empty packaging weighs around 30 grams, according to industry estimates. Adding that to the declared net weight, the whole thing should come to about 618 grams. The home scale read 418. The discrepancy exceeds 30% of the actual weight.
The explanations don't convince everyone. One camp argues the cause is poor calibration of the shopper's scale or the tray resting badly — touching the base, for example. Others see a pattern: "selling air wholesale", they joke. Some even invoke "Martian gravity" to explain the chain's weights.
Mercadona's official response has so far been conspicuously absent. The incident adds to a long list of complaints about labelling and weights in Spanish retail. Is it an isolated worker's mistake or a tolerated practice? Until someone weighs the tray against a known standard, the case remains up in the air.
A shopper has uncovered a discrepancy that smells like a scandal: her chicken tray from the supermarket was labelled 587 grams net, but on her home scale it barely reached 418. The difference, 200 grams, is a fifth of a kilo. Scale error or selling air by the pound?
The maths is simple. The empty packaging weighs around 30 grams, according to industry estimates. Adding that to the declared net weight, the whole thing should come to about 618 grams. The home scale read 418. The discrepancy exceeds 30% of the actual weight.
The explanations don't convince everyone. One camp argues the cause is poor calibration of the shopper's scale or the tray resting badly — touching the base, for example. Others see a pattern: "selling air wholesale", they joke. Some even invoke "Martian gravity" to explain the chain's weights.
Mercadona's official response has so far been conspicuously absent. The incident adds to a long list of complaints about labelling and weights in Spanish retail. Is it an isolated worker's mistake or a tolerated practice? Until someone weighs the tray against a known standard, the case remains up in the air.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (13 replies).
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