The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) has found underweight bread at 54 of the retail outlets and bakeries it inspected in an islandwide sweep, out of 118 premises checked between 1 and 3 September.
The programme was set up to detect short-weight loaves and to verify that weight and price were clearly displayed, the Daily Mirror reported.
What the inspections found
- Underweight bread: detected at 54 shops and bakeries where weight information was available
- Weight not properly displayed: 76 establishments
- Price not properly displayed: 65 establishments
- Bakeries inspected after supply-chain tracing: 81
The required weight of a full loaf is 450 grammes; a half loaf should weigh 225 grammes.
The sweep followed the loaves upstream
The CAA said the investigation did not stop at the point of sale. Where underweight bread was found, officials traced the product back to the supplying bakery or manufacturer and inspected its production process — including the weight of bread being produced and how it was distributed to other outlets.
That tracing is what produced the 81 bakery inspections, a separate count from the 118 premises in the original sweep. Where a bakery was found to be producing underweight bread, its owner was instructed to correct the production process immediately and release only correct-weight bread to the market.
The Authority framed the exercise as correcting the problem at source rather than only penalising retailers, who may be selling short-weight loaves they did not make.
Display failures outnumber weight failures
The most common breach was not short weight but missing information: 76 premises failed to display weight properly and 65 failed to display price, against 54 found selling underweight bread. Since a consumer cannot detect a 30- or 40-gramme shortfall by eye, the display requirement is the mechanism that makes the weight rule enforceable at the counter — and it was the more widely breached of the two.
The CAA said special raids, bakery inspections and supply chain investigations will continue nationwide. Consumers can report weight, price or other trade irregularities involving bread on the CAA hotline 1977 during office hours.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not say how far below 450 grammes the underweight loaves fell, in which districts the raids took place, or whether any prosecutions or fines have followed. It does not give the number of premises where weight information was unavailable — which is the denominator for the 54 figure — or say whether the 81 bakeries overlap with the original 118. No penalty has been stated for a bakery that fails to rectify, and the CAA is not quoted by name.
