Last week’s column was a brief review of what a commercial scale is and what is legally required for it to be used to buy and/or sell an item or product. This week, let’s go over what as a buyer or seller you should expect under Kansas Statute. This applies to both the agricultural community and consumers.
There are two types of transactions a buyer or seller may be involved in. First we have prepackaged sales. These are the sales for example where you go to the meat counter and pick up a three pound chub of ground chuck or buy a fifty pound bag of feed. Your assumption has to be that these scales are certified and accurate. Second are direct transactions. For the consumer these are at the deli counter when you ask for a pound of Swiss cheese or the meat counter and choose a particular cut. One of the most common weighing operations consumers are involved in use scanner scales, the scales at the checkout that read product bar codes and weigh items like produce. Maybe you are purchasing items at a hardware store by weight. For producers, it may involve taking cattle to an auction or grain to an elevator. Producers also are involved when they purchase inputs like fertilizers by weight. The following is a brief description of what your rights are.
• You must be able to view a continuous readout of the scale. The scale should be on zero at the start unless there is a tare weight (more on that in a bit). Then it should read a negative weight. Certain older vehicle and livestock scales do not have readouts for drivers to view. In this case the driver must be allowed to exit the truck to view the readout. Most but not all areas with truck scales have or are remodeling to allowing easy readout of the weight.
• You must be able to view the weighing operation from a reasonable position to insure nothing iffy is going on (think thumb on the scale).
• Now for the tare. The tare weight is the weight of the container. For the deli purchase it’s the package the product is placed in and/or the paper the product sits on depending on how the weighing is done. For the product on the truck it’s the weight of vehicle, perhaps trailer, and if onboard, the driver. This may be determined before or after for the truck scale depending on if the vehicle is bringing a commodity to a facility or picking it up.
• The scale and weighing area should be clean for conditions. There should be nothing interfering with the weighing platform’s operation. The weighing platform must move freely.
• Your ticket for the transaction must include the following: net weight, unit price, total price, and product name. The information must be clear and easily readable. For an elevator unless the grain is sold right then there likely isn’t price information of the ticket.
• You can ask to see the nomenclature plate and it should have the CoC as was mentioned in last week’s column, the scale manufacturer, model, capacity, and division of the smallest weight along with a unique serial number. Older scales, prior to 1986, may not have the nomenclature plate but should have a KDA sticker. For scales after 1986, scales without the nomenclature plate and CoC are not legal for commercial sales.
• The scale should have been certified for commercial use within the last 365 days. Most scales will have sticker on them with this information. You are allowed to ask if you have concerns. The facility should have a minimum of five years of records onsite for a commercial scale.
Naturally there is more but this is your pocket guide to commercial weighing operations.