If you are not careful in the shop, you will quickly buy more air than content. Because many manufacturers of food or drugstore products do not fill their packaging very well. The Hamburg consumer advice center sees this as a major annoyance for customers. In order to demonstrate how blatant the optical illusion caused by oversized packaging can be, she had some products x-rayed in the X-ray laboratory.
The x-rays show that the 15 sample items checked are all filled at most halfway. In some products, the proportion of air was even more than 60 or even 90 percent. “Especially when money is tight, people can rightly expect their money to be properly filled packs,” write the consumer advocates. “With air packs, however, they are duped by the manufacturers.”
From a purely legal point of view, the air packs can hardly be prosecuted, since the calibration and packaging law gives the manufacturers a lot of freedom. The consumer advocates still don’t think that’s okay: “Many companies use missing or vague specifications in regulations and laws to cash in.”
In individual cases, however, the consumer advice center achieves something. A few months ago, consumer advocates warned Lidl about a muesli air pack. The discounter then issued a cease-and-desist declaration and increased the filling quantity.
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Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
