Customer complaint: 1kg labelled chicken fillet bag weighs only 827g

SINGAPORE: A woman took to social media after weighing her bag of chicken fillets containing 1 kilo of meat. Ms Saraswathy Vijayan discovered that the meat—still in its bag, weighed only 827 grams.

“Sadia Frozen Chicken Fillet packaging states 1kg. My Mother kept telling us for a long time that they have reduced the quantity. I had an argument with her on how would anyone dare do that when its already stated on the package. Took the weight to prove her wrong and realised she was right,” wrote Ms Saraswathy on the COMPLAINT SINGAPORE Facebook page on Sunday (Dec 10).

Ms Saraswathy’s post has since been shared over 150 times, and many netizens have also commented on it. Several have underlined that mothers are trustworthy when making these kinds of comments, given the number of years that they have bought and cooked food items.

Others noted that the missing 173g is a big difference and felt like a scam, while others said the bag could be missing as many as 3 to 4 pieces to make up 1 kilo of meat.

Some suggested that Ms Saraswath report the issue to the grocery where she bought the chicken, while others tagged Sadia Singapore in their comments.

Others pointed out that since the chicken meat was frozen, it might have weighed even less than 827 grams when thawed.

The Independent Singapore has contacted Ms Saraswathy and Sadia Singapore for additional comments and updates.

The issue of food weighing less than what is indicated on packages is not a new one. Early last year, a group of netizens started a Facebook group called ‘UNDERWEIGHT UNFAIR PRICE (U2P)‘.

In the group, one of the admins wrote: “NTUC was set up to purchase essential items in bulks so that we Singapore citizens can buy necessities at reasonable price. Little can we imagine we are taken advantage of nowadays. It is possible for them to admit their mistakes, make good their shortcomings if we collectively prove that it is not an one-off human error but a system failure. It is as simple as ABC.”

They referred to the case on Feb 5, where a woman in Singapore posted a video showing a packet of boneless chicken breast she purchased. The FairPrice Xtra label on the package stated a weight of 0.224 kg and a corresponding price of $2.42.

On Feb 9, another video surfaced of an allegedly underweight fresh food product from NTUC FairPrice. The FairPrice Xtra label on the package gives a weight of 0.296 kg and a corresponding price of $9.15. However, the netizen claims that when the package of salmon was weighed, it was 0.176kg. This would mean that the fish was overpriced by some 68 per cent.

NTUC FairPrice said in a statement that the mislabeling incident had been “likely caused by human error” and asked the customer to contact the company. /TISG