Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
I also didn't watch the TikTok (first one was unavailable, second one wanted me to sign in, so I didn't bother as I don't do TikTok).
However, the point is that people shouldn't take random bits of information and make up a story that the store is trying to rip them off by intentionally placing less product in the bag than is displayed on the bag. There could be many reasons, but most likely is some sort of production fuck-up.
I don't work in the grocery industry, but I would be fairly sure that Loblaw's contracts out these store-labeled products, probably to the lowest bidder, with the contract provision including certain quality requirements. As a 'no name' brand, I suspect the quality provisions would include the quality of potatoes that are used for the chips (anecdotally they seem to have more imperfections than name brand chips), but there certainly wouldn't be any cost-benefit to Loblaws in not requiring the bags to reach the product weight requirement.
It's not about whether they care about the customer or not, by having a contractor who mistakenly underfills X number of bags (and we don't know what X is, do we?). It's about how much Loblaws charges the customer over and above their costs.
I posted the package that I weighed because... so what? One or two underfilled bags do not a conspiracy theory make...
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I don't think quality control is just about cost vs expense though. There's an important ethical element that this type of reductionism disregards. Perhaps there are cases in which the profit margin isn't unreasonable but if they performed the due diligence needed to ensure quality standards then the margin would be much tighter. Well an ethical company would realize that you can't sacrifice quality because of the potential negative effects it could have on customers. They'd realize that if they wanted to achieve a healthier profit margin they'd need to improve efficiencies in other areas. A company is not entitled to profit at any cost. There are some corners that cannot be cut. So simply concluding that "if their profit margin seems reasonable, they must not be doing anything wrong" isn't a good approach.
But yes, in this case, if the people who made the tiktok drew the conclusion that it must have been intentional malice or negligence then I agree that it was premature. But I hope you're not suggesting that people should draw the reverse conclusion by assuming it must be totally innocent when we don't have evidence to support that either. Especially when they've done things to erode the benefit of the doubt they'd normally to entitled to.