MediumRoastSteam My personal view (I don’t know if it’s correct) is that to protect the consumer, the weight should always be legally the net weight, unless otherwise stated. Unfortunately, consumer protection/protection of ordinary people, seems low down on the list when it comes to drafting laws.
the law on coffee is particularly opaque, as it’s not classed as a food and different rules exist for instant coffee, or soluble coffee products. There are lots of regulations around net weight (pages and pages). However there is no set of clear guidance on key weight parameters and an impossibility to get any clarity on net or gross weigh labelling in general and for coffee, apart from what the terms mean.
It seems that a product (like coffee) can be marked with a weight and it not defined whether net or gross, in addition there is nothing in law to say “unless otherwise stated” net weight labelling is assumed. A simple statement like this would address any concerns the consumer might have and stop opaque labelling practices.
The term “unless otherwise stated” is common parlance used by business when dealing with consumers to protect them. In laws to protect consumers…it seems rarely used.
IMO any good roaster will always use net weight…stated or not.
