Guidance notes for interrupting weight control for bakery?
Hello All,
Does anyone have any guidance notes for interrupting weight control for bakery? The example I would give, do Gingerbread (biscuits) need to show a declared average weight? I though because they are a biscuit and less than 50g, they dont. However if a gingerbread biscuit is decorated, is this also exempt?
If anyone has any guidance for items such as flapjacks, cookies, muffins etc, I'd appreciate it. These items are all single items that are prepacked.
Are there any guidance notes on weight control methods for low risk ambient bakery?
Hi StevieP,
It gets a very brief mention in this guidance:
http://www.reading.a...idance-2007.pdf
All the sector-specific guidance for both plant bakers and small bakers seems to focus on weight control for bread so didn't seem to be a great deal of use for you.
It's not a product sector I'm hugely familiar with, but I'd recommend calling your local Trading Standards office - in my experience they're very helpful and would much rather provide a bit of advice before you do something, than have to take enforcement action afterwards...
Many will now offer paid "assured advice" which can be very useful and is extremely good value compared to asking the same question of someone like Leatherhead or Campden (and may even be cheaper than the cost to the business of your time trying to track down an answer!)
Hi Stevie
If you are selling in the UK then rules on quantity are set out in the Weights and Measures regulation.
You basically have 4 options for quantity control, and they apply to all products
1. Average weight
2. Minimum weight
3. Catch Weight
4. Count
If you opt for count i.e. 36 Gingerbread biscuits then the consumer needs to be able to see the biscuits and ideally be able to count them before purchase.
If you are working to average weight then what you declare is the nominal weight, not the average.
The average weight of the packing run must be equal to or greater than the nominal weight
You also have to deal with the controls on the Tolerable negative error (T1 and T2) which essential control the range of weights you can have.
Minimum weight means that no pack can be below the declared weight
Catch weight means you weigh each individual pack and declare that weight
There is a lot of good guidance on the regulations available on line
regards
I think StevieP was perhaps hoping to fall into the exemption in 3(4)(g) / Schedule 6 of the Weights & Measures (Packaged Goods) regs, and thus not need on an on-pack declaration of a nominal quantity for his single-item packs?
Thanks for the information. I'm fairly comfortable around average weight and fixed weight etc. However,
I thought I'd seen some guidance around bakery and biscuits in particular around they didn't need to be weight marked if they fell into a certain criteria.