Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Scale Man

We want to wish each of you Merry Christmas and we hope that you have a wonderful and safe new year.

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Happy Veteran’s Day

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Scale Man

We would like to say thank you to all the Veteran’s out there who have served our country. We appreciate you!

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Brecknell Price Computing Scale Overview

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Scale Man

We’ll include the video version of this overview as well but today we wanted to take a quick look at the Brecknell PC-30 and PC-60 price computing scales. If you’re interested in a basic, no frills, simple to use, not many bells and whistles retail scale, then the PC series might be just what you’re looking for. This scale is really easy to use, accurate, reliable and features brand name quality.

We want to take a quick look at the Brecknell price computing scale which is available in two different capacities – thirty-pound or sixty-pound and this is what we would call our basic price computing scale which has the price computing function. It also displays weight in lb, kilogram or ounces. The scale features built-in rechargeable battery. Basic price computing function is pretty easy. Just place your item(s) on the scale and enter the price per pound that you want to charge your customer. The scale will then compute the total costs that your customer owes you.

PLU or Price Look Ups are an easy way to program popular items in your scale for quicker recall. Let’s say that you sell a lot of strawberries. You could program strawberries into your PLU number 1 button at $3.99 per pound. Now when someone brings a bucket of strawberries to the scale, place an empty bucket on the scale, press Tare and then press PLU button number 1.

One question that we are asked often is backlight display options. The Brecknell PC30 and PC60 have three different backlight choices. You can have the backlight display “auto” which basically means that the back-lite will display when something is added to the scale platter. You can turn the backlight off totally which will help to increase battery life. Or, you can have the backlight on all the time.

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Label Printing Scale For The Neighborhood Grocery Store

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Scale Man

Don’s first job not counting his paper routes was in the same meat shop that he owns today and renamed D. W. Whitaker Meats in 1991. He waited on people and cleaned after school and weekends for the family who had owned the meat shop for 45 years. Don says, “They taught me a lot. ‘Make sure the customer is happy.’ I always wanted to have my own business and I was eager to learn.”

Don keeps that old-time, first name relationship with his loyal customers and takes advantage of the most sophisticated weighing, pricing and labeling equipment. “When I first bought the shop, I worked 60 hours and more a week. I had two employees. Now I have five people full time and eight part-time people on weekends. We’ve added so much more. Now we have homemade chicken and turkey sausages. We opened a new deli meat case in October and added two more Ishida Astra scales that label the deli bags very neatly. We custom cut and trim our fresh pork and poultry and wrap it in butcher paper. We needed a price-computing scale that printed labels with all the food information and our distinctive logo. We needed all the equipment linked together and to a PC.” The Astra communicates via an RS-232 serial connection, and Don uses his netbook portable PC for all PLU and price updates. The easy-to-use Astra label-printing scale offers more features for less cost. The operator-friendly keyboard speeds up transactions with up to 88 preset keys. Astralink PLU editing software allows customization of the operator keysheet inserts. The Astra can store hundreds of PLUs and comes standard with eight label formats.

If you go, a Westside Market veteran advises shoppers to hone bargaining skills and bring cash—small bills, fives or tens, and a shopping bag. To get the best of these offerings you must do what your grandparents did—forge relationships. Forget how you behave at the grocery store; this is no grocery store. This is a place where your butcher knows your name; your fishmonger personally scales your fish; where you can spend 30 minutes tasting and buying cheese. Click here to see the entire article.

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Selling Fruits and Vegetables To Customers By Weight

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Scale Man

When you sell your fresh produce at the market or the produce stand you have several choices. You can sell your items pre packed in a bucket or container for a fixed price or you can sell your items by the pound. As we’ve mentioned in the past, we’re fans of selling and buying produce by weight. This way both the customer and the seller know what they are exchanging. Let’s face it we’ve all purchased something over the years that we felt like wasn’t a good deal. One example might be a bucket of strawberries that a local u-pic farm was offering. They offer it at a certain price but how many strawberries did we really get? Take a look at the info below that discusses Illinois regulations.

Selling by Weight
Commodities must be sold by net weight. The weight of the commodity must exclude any materials that are not considered to be a part of the commodity. These materials include containers, bags, labels, and wrappers. Commodities sold by weight must be weighed using a certified scale.

Scale Requirements
All scales used in commerce must have a National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP) Certificate of Conformance issued by the National Conference on Weights and Measures. Scales receive an NTEP Certificate of Conformance after the successful completion of the evaluation and testing of the device.
The Certificate indicates that the device meets applicable requirements for commercial weighing and measuring equipment in the U.S. Scales must be purchased from a registered service company.


If you’re a loyal reader of our blog you understand by now that we are believers in buying NTEP Class III legal for trade scales. These scales are usually a higher quality product and are designed for accuracy and typically are built with a slightly more expensive parts list. This means that these scales usually have better load cells inside, better A/D boards, and just generally a better more solid structure.

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More Farmers Market Rules and Regulations To Read About

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Scale Man

Most of the information posted below is pretty standard but we thought it would be nice to bring it to our readers attention just in case. Especially, those of you up in Maine. You can see the entire brochure by clicking here.

7. “Legal For Trade Scales for Use at Farm Stands and Farmer’s Markets” means labeled as Class II or Class III, National Type Evaluation(NTEP) certified, small division size, operates at a higher level of accuracy than a
non-legal for trade device.
9. “Net Weight” means the weight of a commodity excluding the weight of any material, substance or item not a part of the commodity (i.e.: containers, bags, wrappers, labels).
10. “Non-Legal For Trade Scales” means not certified by the Maine State Sealer of Weights and Measures, not NTEP certified, not designed to operate at commercial tolerance levels, only used for estimating purposes.

G. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
1. The weight of any commodity packaged with a pre-determined weight printed on the label must meet or exceed the labeled quantity.
2. Products sold in bulk by weight must be weighed using a ME certified scales.
3. Weight of products sold in bulk must be the Net Weight.
4. Scales used at point of sale must be positioned so the weight readout can be seen from a reasonable customer location.

As we mentioned, it’s pretty standard info but it’s always nice to read additional regulations which will hopefully help sellers at the market to know what the regulations are and allow them to make the correct purchases in order to follow the proper guidelines.

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Do You Have Anymore Mettler Toledo 8433 Scales?

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Scale Man

We were just recently asked if we know anybody who had anymore of those Mettler Toledoâ„¢ 8433 price computing scales? This scale has been discontinued for probably ten years by now. But it doesn’t really surprise us that folks are looking for this scale. The 8433 was actually a really good scale for the money. We still see a few of these out in the field to this day. Those customers sure got their money’s worth on that purchase.

So you might be asking what takes the 8433 scales place? Well, originally it was the Tiger II. Then the factory started offering both a 30 lb and 60 lb capacity, called the Model XRT-2710 or XRT-3710. Then it was the RE15 or RE30 from Ohaus. Now today, the replacement would be the Aviator 7000.

We were fairly familiar with all these scales mentioned above. They all worked pretty well and we still see each of these at farmers markets or produce stands all the time. Of course, as the years go by each replacement model seems to have less substance to it and more plastic construction. And, the AC adapters are smaller and extremely light weight compared to some of the older adapters that literally weighed several pounds by themselves.

We wrote recently about the Aviator 7000 which is the 2014 “version” of the old 8433 scale. The Aviator 7000 is a really nice scale and has quite a few features the 8433 could only dream about.  Based on our evaluation of the scale, we would definitely recommend it as a good choice for most customers looking for a reliable retail scale that is going to be accurate and power up when you need it most.

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Dual Range Capacity Scales Can Put Some Extra Cents In Your Pocket

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Scale Man

We’ve discussed this in the past a couple of times but it’s worth mentioning once again. NTEP legal for trade digital scales that feature dual range capacity can actually put a few extra pennies in your pocket on certain transactions. In the video linked below, you can actually see an example where one scale has dual range capacity while another one does not.

As we mentioned, you probably will not gain on every transaction, but you certainly can gain some extra profit with the dual range capability on certain transactions. We’ll leave it up to you to get a calculator and start thinking about how much additional profit you might obtain over the life of the scales if you were to make the switch to one of these scales.

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What is the Best Way to Sell Fruits and Vegetables at the Farmers Market?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Scale Man

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t get excited just thinking about sampling all the fresh fruits, vegetables, tasty ready-to-eat foods, crafts, and more at your local farmers market?  The majority of Markets are open during this time of the year. Have you ever wondered what does the Department of Agriculture require of me in order to be a vendor at my local farmers market? What kind of scale do I need? Will someone test my scale? Is it ok to sell my produce by the head, bunch or count? These are just a few of the questions that your local Measurement Standards Division can assist you with. Below is some information from the state of Oregon.

SCALE REQUIREMENTS
What type of devices can be used commercially?
Oregon regulations require all commercially used weighing equipment to have an active National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP) Certificate of Conformance.

How can I find out which scales have an active NTEP certificate?
You can contact the scale company or check the NTEP database online.

 

Commodity Method of Sale
Apples Weight, count, or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Apricots Weight
Artichokes Weight or count
Asparagus Weight or bunch
Avocados Count
Bananas Weight
Beans Weight or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Beets Weight or bunch
Berries (all) Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Broccoli Weight or bunch
Brussel sprouts Weight
Cabbage Weight or count
Cantaloupes Weight or count
Carrots Weight or bunch
Cauliflower Weight or bunch
Celery Weight or count
Cherries Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Coconuts Weight or count
Corn on the cob Count
Cranberries Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Cucumbers Weight or count
Currants Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Dates Weight
Eggplant Weight or count
Escarole Weight or count
Figs Weight
Garlic Weight or count
Grapefruits Weight or count
Grapes Weight
Greens (all) Weight
Kale Weight
Kohlrabi Weight
Leeks Weight
Lemons Weight or count
Lettuce Weight or count
Limes Weight or count
Mangoes Weight or count
Melons (whole) Weight or count
Melons (cut or pieces) Weight
Mushrooms Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Nectarines Weight or count
Okra Weight
Onions (spring or green) Weight or bunch
Onions (dry) Weight
Oranges Weight or count
Papaya Weight or count
Parsley Weight or bunch
Parsnips Weight
Peaches Weight, count, or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Pears Weight, count, or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Peas Weight
Peppers Weight or count
Persimmons Weight or count
Plums Weight or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Pineapples Weight or count
Pomegranates Weight or count
Potatoes (Irish or sweet) Weight
Prunes Weight
Pumpkins Weight or count
Radishes Weight or count
Rhubarb Weight
Rutabagas Weight
Spinach Weight or bunch
Tangerines Weight or count
Tomatoes Weight, count, or dry measure in units of 1 peck, 1/2 bushel, or 1 bushel
Tomatoes (cherry) Weight or dry measure in units of 1/2 dry pint, 1 dry pint, or 1 dry quart
Turnips Weight or bunch


We hope this article above helps you not only figure out what scale you need for selling at the farmers market but also what are some of the recommended ways (weight, count, bunch etc..) to sell your produce and vegetables. Of course we’re biased on this site because we think weight is the best choice and it probably is, in most cases with a few exceptions.

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Class III Certified Scales At The Farmers Market Are Recommended

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Scale Man

At most farmers markets around the United States, state inspectors use calibrated weight kits to validate and certify digital scales for commercial transactions. Laws and regulations can vary from state to state but generally it is a good idea to purchase a scale that is Class III NTEP approved, legal for trade. The scale will have a Certificate of Conformance (CoC#) that should be posted somewhere on the enclosure. Of course, this is something we’ve been saying for years and years but we still see sellers every now and then trying to use some cheap scale they bought on ebay for $35.  In fact, next time you’re buying something over a digital scale like chocolate, candy, or frozen yogurt, take a look at the scale and see if you can find the CoC #.  Take a look at the article below for additional info.

At farmers markets, growers have the option to sell produce by weight. If they choose to do so, they will need to meet the South Dakota laws regarding certified scales. South Dakota Codified Law requires any device used in a commercial transaction to be an approved NTEP (National Type Evaluation Program) device, meet the requirements of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Handbook 44, and to be certified and sealed (inspected) by the State of South Dakota Department of Weights and Measures. This includes countertop scales, typically found at farmers markets. Inspecting a scale is beneficial to both the vendor and consumer, as it ensures both parties are receiving fair and equitable treatment. For example, consumers want to feel confident they are “getting what they pay for,” while vendors need to know they are not giving away their hard earned product.

Vendors should purchase a scale with a NTEP certification. This certificate indicates that the scale demonstrated the ability to be properly calibrated and can hold calibration over time. Keep in mind that no device is perfect and must be adjusted periodically. Scales can be purchased off the Internet, from scale companies in South Dakota, or additional locations you may select. – See more at: http://igrow.org/community-development/local-foods/farmers-market-operation-certified-scales/

We should also mention that you should get your scale checked and calibrated each year. We suggest doing this in February (or whenever your “slow” time of the year is) when your weighing needs aren’t quite as intense as they are in spring and summer. At this time you should make sure your scale is accurate and purchase any accessories like spare rechargeable batteries or keypads so there are no surprises during your busy time of the season.

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