Bakery fined for selling underweight bread
A Portadown bakery has been ordered to pay a fine of £1,500 for selling shortweight bread.
W D Irwin and Sons Ltd was also fined 44 court costs at Craigavon Magistrates Court yesterday.
In a case brought by the Trading Standards Service of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, W D Irwin and Sons Ltd, of Diviny Drive, Carn Industrial Estate, Craigavon, pleaded guilty to 10 charges under the Weights and Measures (Northern Ireland) Order 1981.
In April 2008, a Trading Standards inspector was routinely check-weighing produce for sale in supermarkets when it was discovered that 38 out of 51 loaves from two lines contained less than the 600g marked weight.
In some cases the deficiency was more than 10 per cent.
A follow-up visit to the bakery revealed that no checks had been made to ensure the weights of the particular batches of loaves were correct.
Trading Standards area inspector Bill Malloy said: "Consumers are entitled to expect that the bread they buy weighs as stated on the packaging.
"Bakeries have an obligation to ensure that the weight of loaves meets the minimum weight standards laid down and should have measures in place to check this.
"With the increasing price of many foods, it is more important than ever that consumers are sold the amount stated on the packaging of products."
Later Michael Murphy, Irwin's Commercial Controller, said they had taken action to ensure such a thing did not happen again.
The problem had arisen during limited runs on two new lines and remedial work meant they would now be over weight rather than under weight.
He said: "We take this incident extremely seriously and would like reassure consumers that we have taken rigorous steps to ensure this problem does not occur again.
"We have increased the weight of ingredients for the specific products, which will, in fact, mean that they will now exceed the required product weight."
He explained that during the baking process of the new products, grains and seeds had incurred more weight loss than expected, causing the end product to be under-weight.
Mr Murphy added: "At Irwin's, our priority is to produce the highest quality breads, which meet both consumer needs and are fully in line with industry requirements.
"We have invested significantly in our processing facilities and techniques to this end and are proud to say that in almost 100 years of baking - producing over one million products per week - this is the first time that we have experienced problems of this nature.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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