Unfair price? Woman says she 'felt cheated' after finding pork from FairPrice weighs less than labelled

[Update Nov 17] Responding to AsiaOne's queries, a spokesperson from FairPrice said that there are protocols and procedures in place to ensure labeling accuracy, as well as a customer satisfaction policy where a full refund or exchange for products will be given for products that are inaccurately labeled.

They added that customers who find any labeling discrepancy of products may approach the store staff immediately to rectify the issue "in a timely manner".

The supermarket chain also apologised for any public concern that the social post may have caused.

FairPrice said that it takes this matter very seriously and requests the customer contact them directly at their Customer Service Hotline at 6380 5858 or via their website to aid their investigation into the matter.

Most customers wouldn't think twice about verifying the labels on fresh produce at supermarkets.

But for one woman who did, she ended up discovering that she could have been shortchanged. 

One woman, Shiloh, took to TikTok to express her gripes about a packet of minced pork she purchased from a FairPrice outlet at Serangoon North on Monday (Nov 14). 

In her video, Shiloh showed a picture of the pork in a plastic bag, with a label stating it was 0.32kg.

However, the number on her kitchen scale showed that she was only given 0.24kg of meat — some 80 grams less than what she paid for. 

"I felt cheated," the 40-year-old wrote in the video. 

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@canyoufindxuan/video/7165672944679537921?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1[/embed]

Speaking to AsiaOne about the incident, Shiloh said she weighed the pork upon reaching home as she felt that "the weight wasn't right". 

She said that it was her first time doing something like this as she felt that "the difference in weight [was] too obvious." 

Shiloh continued: "My mother-in-law [went] to look for the staff and asked him to check whether the weight on the [label] is the same as the scale." 

"The staff quickly topped up [the pork] to what I had paid for." 

Over in the comments, some netizens expressed their disdain, with one saying "unfair price". Another joked that Shiloh should have brought her weighing scale to the supermarket.

Back in February, the supermarket chain came under fire when some consumers realised that their purchased produce was inaccurately labelled — similar to what Shiloh experienced. 

One of them was Nina Monzolevska who discovered that her 0.224kg pack of chicken weighed a mere 0.165kg. She had purchased the poultry from the FairPrice Xtra outlet at Nex. 

In the same week, another customer also complained that his packet of salmon had a labelled weight of 0.296kg, but only weighed 0.196kg on his scale. 

Responding to The Straits Times' queries about the first incident, a spokesperson from FairPrice said then: "The mislabelling incident likely arose due to human error, based on our initial findings, since we were unable to retrieve the product in question to conduct a more comprehensive investigation."

The spokesperson added that certified technicians have been engaged to recertify all scales at Nex. 

The supermarket chain also said its scales across its FairPrice, FairPrice Finest and FairPrice Xtra outlets are calibrated by authorised vendors yearly and undergo preventive maintenance twice a year.

claudiatan@asiaone.com

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