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After the purchase, do you often think that “it would be more like the package you used to buy”? Don’t think you were wrong, remember well!
According to Duygu Erdogan’s report from Milliyet; Those who estimate that the cost of inputs has increased reflect this increase in food products. For this reason, companies that expose factors such as fluctuating exchange rates and oil prices from time to time take immediate action. However, companies that want to use consumer perception take refuge in ‘weight’. In other words, while the prices seem the same to the consumer, the product they buy does not weigh the same. Cookies, snacks, and even all the basic food items in the package get their share.
The weight-on-label game, which was previously on the agenda especially in 2018, has led consumers to generate a growing number of complaints recently. Consequently, those who reduce the weight and keep the price constant or even increase it are captured by the consumer and the corresponding system one after another. Although this situation is perceived as a kind of ‘trap’ when taking advantage of consumer perception, there is no legal sanction.
Packed in melts
There are also those who make ‘small’ cuts of the weights but do not even reflect them on the label. Companies that do this are fully considered within the scope of ‘cheating’ and have penalties. The punishment for this fraud, especially food products for imitation and adulteration, will increase with the new bill. Consumers can complain about these products just by taking their photos.
Also, the weight deception does not distinguish the brand. supermarket chains in Turkey, small markets, grocery products entering up; There may be some products from well-known and lesser-known companies.
Aydın Ağaoğlu, Honorary President of the Consumer Application Center, stated that there are several problems with the label: “These are made as cheating, deliberate deception and mistake. The price is the same, but the company that reduces the weight makes a deliberate deception. No there is a penalty, but a moral problem. If it is not defeated according to the grammage, it means fraud and there is a penalty, legal action must be taken. While they try to steal a few grams and make a profit, they are defrauding the consumer, “he said.
Ağaoğlu, giving the example of cheese in staple foods, said: “The grams of cheese in the package melt every day. Now take a photo, see the changes in a few months. We see that 800-900 grams of cheese have dropped to 600 grams. Don’t be fooled if the prices are the same. Gold, silver; The increase in foreign currency, oil is immediately deducted from grams, “he said.
‘There is an advertiser’
Asking the consumer to ‘get in the habit of reading labels’, consumer associations emphasize that they cannot be misled in perception and that companies will no longer dare to do so when they report all the crimes they notice. Aziz Koçal, president of the Consumer Protection Association (TÜKODER) and president of the Federation of Consumer Associations (TÜDEF), said that there are even those who announce that ‘we do not go up, we sell at the same price’, and that there were also those who decreased the weight and increased the price. Koçal said: “For example, when there are packages that go with 50 and its multiples, now write 188 grams. If the price of a product of 200 grams is 10 lira, the price of the product made of 188 grams should be the corresponding one.
The unit price must be written. In other words, the price and the sale amount corresponding to 188 grams must be written. One of the most dramatic examples from previous years was shampoos. The same product, which was 700 grams, dropped to 550 grams, “he said.
WHAT SHOULD CONSUMERS DO?
The following recommendations are offered to association consumers:
It is highly recommended to ‘read the labels’ so that consumers do not fall into these errors.
Errors seen and tricks noticed can be photographed.
The consumer cannot weigh all the products, but can weigh the suspect product and complain to the relevant institutions.
The photos taken must be sent to the Consumer Arbitration Committees.
In determining the non-conformities in question; Inspections are also carried out as a result of notices, complaints, requests from CIMER and Alo 174 Food Line made by consumers. These inspections are carried out by unions affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In addition, you can also use the application for notification of unfair price increases (HFA) of the Ministry of Commerce, Consumer Information Line Alo 175, and the notification line of the Ministry of Finance and Finance, VIMER-189.
Gum disorder
Aydın Ağaoğlu, who explained that the misconception of weight is used due to the problem of ‘clutter’ in the ‘small’ snack category products, which are sold one by one, said: “For example, the gum producers. While a chewing gum costs 1 lira, it can reduce the grams because it makes it difficult to buy. “Of course, the explanation alone is not enough. The new weight needs to be displayed on the new label in a certain way. “
‘We are in the air, not chips’
We have also collected some complaints about products, consumer associations and social media channels whose price and gram information was available in our previous news. Products such as cookies, chips, snacks, packaged chocolate, shampoo, cheese, processed meat products and tomato paste stand out.
Products whose old and new images are shared by consumer associations, such as cookies that fall from 80 grams to 74 grams, cookies from 120 grams to 91 grams, chocolate from 35 grams to 32 grams, instant coffee from 18, 5 grams to 17.5 grams are just some of them. These examples actually describe melting ‘gram for gram’.
While the same tomato paste, which was 830 grams last year, fell to 650 grams this year, 250 grams of sunflower seeds are sold in 200-gram packages. 700 grams of packaged cheese has been reduced to 600 grams, and there is an increase in its price. Consumers writing to social media accounts or various complaint sites have also commented that “we are air, not chips.” 69 grams of chips were reduced to 46 grams and 76 grams of chips to 65 grams.
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