“Consumers have a right to receive the true value of the products they pay for.”
-DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski
Today the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) announced a settlement with Roundy’s Supermarkets, Inc. (Roundy’s) resolving 1,202 alleged short weight package violations and 90 alleged package labeling violations. Under the settlement, Roundy’s does not admit any violations but will pay $1,003,590.50 in civil forfeitures, surcharges, and fees.
On December 13, 2023, and from January 16 to January 18, 2024, inspectors from DATCP and municipal weights and measures programs conducted inspections in 81 of 105 stores owned and operated by Roundy’s in Wisconsin. As a result of that joint effort, Pick ‘n Save and Metro Market stores operated by Roundy’s were inspected in communities including Appleton, Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, Waukesha, Wausau, and more.
During this four-day survey, 1,202 of the products inspected were found to have a listed net weight that was unreasonably inaccurate, meaning consumers received less than what they had paid for. These products were found to be overpriced an average of $1.44 per item, with the largest error found to be an item overpriced by $7.04. Food products that DATCP recorded as short weight included precooked meals, salad kits, store-packaged sandwiches, premade cold platters, fruits and vegetables, baked goods, fish fillets, and others.
In addition to the net weight violations, 587 products inspected were found to have label errors that can mislead consumers, and 90 of those errors resulted in civil forfeitures, including 55 alleged violations of improperly selling a product by count instead of by weight and 35 alleged violations of failure to properly display the net quantity in a prominent location on the packaging.
“Consumers have a right to receive the true value of the products they pay for,” said DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski. “The DATCP Bureau of Weights and Measures conducts hundreds of thousands of inspections every year to protect Wisconsin consumers from misleading pricing and labeling, and I am proud that our team’s work in this matter will ensure fair prices and improve future compliance.”
Between 2018 and 2023, Roundy’s received 63 warning letters from the DATCP Bureau of Weights and Measures for short weight package and label error violations. The December 2023 and January 2024 survey followed civil forfeitures paid by Roundy’s in 2018, 2022, and 2023 also related to short weight package violations, totaling $20,659 across all three years. Roundy’s has committed to implementing corrective measures in all its locations to ensure that store-made products are properly labeled for consumers. These measures include new informational signage in production areas, updated standard operating procedure manuals, sustained associate training, and randomly conducted internal weight checks and label placement inspections.
