Restaurant Glossary
Catch Weight
Restaurant space is full of words that one might not be familiar with, and the restaurant glossary is here to simplify it all for you. It will help you keep up with updated restaurant industry lingo.
What is catch weight?
A catch weight is just a parallel unit of measurement used in the food industry to manage variable-weight items. It refers to the unit by which the item is weighed and invoiced. Catchweight is the exact weight of an individual food item. It is also known as the variable weight.
For example, buying fruits at a mart. When you buy a single quantity of watermelon from a store, the price of it will never be the same every time even if it’s the same quantity because of the difference in weight. Selling them all at the same price may mean that one customer ends up with 1kg watermelon and another with 1.5kg at the same price which is why products are priced according to weight.
Why is catch weight management important?
The catch weight does not affect health and safety in the food manufacturing sector. It does, however, affect the manufacturer’s time and money. In any event, catch weight becomes crucial for items with varying weights because having effective catch weight management in place would help them avoid expensive mistakes.
- Fair Pricing
Fair pricing is of utmost importance for the benefit of both – the seller and the customer. Catch weight management helps in managing products that have weight variability. Simply applying an ‘average’ weight and corresponding price to all products of a given variety would end up with either the seller or the buyer getting shortchanged in many cases.
- Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the most essential factor for any business along with the brand reputation. It’s essential to implement the best system to make sure that the customers don’t feel that you would ‘rip off’ them in this way.
A catch weight management system will allow for accurate invoicing of customers. The easiest way to ensure the accuracy of your items and their pricing is to transparently account for catch weight
What are the key challenges with catch weight management?
- Manufacturers have experienced some difficulties adopting catch weight because they have always relied on a manual process, which is obviously very labor-intensive, prone to error, and necessitates high expenses from the organizations.
- Many manufacturers employ workers who use a pen and paper to record the weight of each package that exits the line when the line is stopped for weighing. Not only does this encourage human mistakes, but it also requires manufacturing companies to spend a significant amount of money and effort physically tracking each weight.
- Food producers and processors that don’t want to waste time or money must discover an option that addresses this problem sustainably while also saving them time and money. The answer is an ERP system for the food industry that includes catch weight management features.