Reducing Product Give Away: Back to Basics

by Jim Seufert

Are your customers getting more than they pay for – literally?  Many food processors give away thousands of dollars of perfectly good product each year due to overfilling the package.  Do you track product give away due to overfilling?

One company only noticed the magnitude of their problem when trucks were over weight at the scale and had to return to off-load pallets. Another company calculated that they give away nearly $100,000 of product per year.

Ensuring that buyers get the exact amount of product they have purchased is a delicate balance.  To accomplish this, many processors set a target weight slightly above the label weight.  For example, if the label weight is 16 ounces, the production target weight may be 16.1 ounces.  The ability to consistently fill to the target weight depends on a number of variables including:

• Accuracy of the equipment
• Operator experience
• Product attributes like size and variability - think frozen peas versus cauliflower florets
• Package sizes – think 2 ounce versus 12 ounce versus 32 ounce. A 32 ounce package gives you more scale dumps to work with

Northwest Food Processors Innovation Productivity Center (IPC) has researched this issue at a number of processors.  Several key lessons have emerged:

1. Measure and track overfills at a management level
2. Communicate what’s at stake to everyone who can make a difference
3. Monitor and manage fill weights throughout each shift

Track Overfills
Each product should have a documented label weight and target weight.  Then, during production runs, standard sampling procedures should be followed to determine actual production weights.  These weights should be collected and tracked in a database.  When overfill data are captured for all products, management can evaluate big-picture trends and calculate total impact to the business.

Let’s revisit our previous example, where the label weight is 16 ounces and the target weight is 16.1 ounces.  If production runs result in actual weights of 16.3 ounces you are overfilling each package by an average of 0.2 ounces.  

You can easily calculate total product give away by multiplying the 0.2 ounces over target weight by the number of packages produced.  Assuming you ran 10,000 units, multiply that by 0.2 ounces = 2,000 ounces. That’s 125 pounds of product giveaway.

Monitor Performance
Shift supervisors should lead the charge here.  They need to walk the floor and ensure that accurate fill weights are a priority.  This is not a one-time activity.  This needs to happen everyday, during each production run.  

The supervisor should build awareness of the issue and encourage ownership by staff on the line.  For example, the supervisor should review scale log sheets and discuss variances during each product run.  If a product is proving difficult to run, they should try to solve the issue then and there.  This hands-on engagement builds a culture of responsibility and accountability.

Why Bother?
You should be concerned about overfills because there may be real money on the table.  By focusing on the basics of calculating the impact and actively managing the issue, one food processing plant cut their product giveaway by half in three months.

Contact IPC advisors Glenn Felix This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text48897 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Jim Seufert This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.