What Is Catch Weight in Food? + How To Manage It

“My customers don’t trust me.”

…is something you don’t ever want to say out loud. If what your customers pay for and what they receive don’t match up, you leave room for frustration, financial losses, and strained relationships.

Catch weight management can help farm owners avoid these complications and ensure fair transactions for both parties. 

Variations in size, moisture content, and other natural factors make assigning a fixed weight to perishable goods difficult — catch weight management makes it easy. This article dives into the what, why, and how of catch weight management so you can keep customers happy and make a profit.

What Is Catch Weight in Food?

In the food industry, catch weight refers to a pricing system where products are sold based on their actual weight instead of a predetermined fixed weight.

In other words, the price a customer pays depends on the precise weight at the time of purchase. It’s commonly used for products that naturally vary in weight, such as meat, seafood, and fresh produce.

Without catch weight management, you can’t account for variations in size, shape, or moisture content. For example, no two steaks will weigh exactly the same, and a head of lettuce can differ in weight from one unit to another depending on multiple factors.

It’s only fair that buyers and sellers are charged or compensated fairly on the exact weight of the product. So, what does this mean for your farm?

Why Catch Weight Matters to Your Farm Shop

Accurate catch weight management affects various parts of your operation. There are challenges and opportunities that could impact your customer relationships and bottom line, such as:

• Ensuring fair prices: Relying on fixed weight pricing leads to overcharging or undercharging customers, damaging their trust in your business. You make more profit when you charge fair prices, and your customers will know they can trust you.
• Managing inventory well: It can be difficult to predict stock levels accurately, leading to overstocking or understocking. With accurate catch weight management, you can get a handle on inventory, minimizing waste and maximizing profitability.
• Complying with regulatory requirements: Specific labeling and pricing regulations often apply to variable weight items. Non-compliance could lead to fines and legal issues. Robust catch weight management ensures your farm adheres to regulations.

While catch weight management has challenges, the opportunity lies in how you differentiate your farm from competitors. Your commitment to fair and transparent pricing helps your reputation and shows customers you care.

Let’s get into how you can manage catch weight for your farm to fork business.

How To Manage Catch Weight

To truly answer the question what is catch weight in food, we have to talk about how to manage it. Developing a procedure for catch weight management is the best way to set up your farm for success:

• Invest in accurate weighing equipment: There’s no point using catch weight management if you can’t get precise weight measurements. Investing in high-quality scales and equipment is a must for farm to fork owners. From heavy-duty floor scales for bulk items to tabletop scales for smaller goods, the right tools can make all the difference.
• Train employees on catch weight procedures: Even with the best equipment, you’re still relying on your staff to follow proper weighing procedures. Train staff thoroughly on proper weighing techniques, labeling requirements, documentation, and handling guidelines.
• Implement proper packaging and labeling: Clear and transparent labeling is essential to fulfilling catch weight orders. Appropriate packaging ensures products don’t get damaged in transit. Clearly display weight information, product descriptions, and pricing on easy-to-read labels. Note: Attach labels at the last minute, so you can quickly adjust prices if necessary.
• Monitor conditions during storage and shipping: Temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors impact the weight of catch weight products. Strict monitoring and control measures throughout storage and shipping can minimize fluctuations.
• Collaborate with reliable shipping partners: Choosing the right shipping partner makes sending out catch weight products easier. Talk to shipping partners about their refrigerated trucks and delivery processes to ensure they align with your catch weight management protocols.
• Communicate with customers: Catch weight management software shows the previous weight of a product when it was received and the new weight when it’s about to be shipped. Communicate this information to your customers on labels and invoices.

You have a process; now, let’s look at a tool that can streamline it for your farm.

Leverage Catch Weight Management Software

Catch weight management is easier with the right tools. Software platforms like GrazeCart, designed specifically for the unique needs of the farming and food distribution industries, have catch weight management baked in.

Catch weight management software can:

• • Improve inventory management: Most food producers sell products based on weight classes (small, medium, large). While this helps align billing closer to the actual weight, it's still not perfect. The major downside to this method is that it adds time-consuming labor to receive and track inventory for each item by multiple weight classes (essentially tripling your SKU count and inventory complexity). Instead, with catch weight management software, you can track inventory based on units available for purchase.
  • Price catch weight products: Dynamic pricing capabilities let you set prices based on the actual weight of items at the time of sale.
  • Integrate with your online store: Accept orders for nationwide shipping, local delivery, or curbside pickup, all from your e-commerce store.
  • Manage delivery and fulfillment: You can use your own delivery fleet or nationwide carriers like UPS and manage it all from your integrated software.
• Integrate with your point of sale (POS) system: GrazeCart offers POS software that manages inventory, pricing, and sales

You can easily manage catch weight inventory, fulfillment, and delivery with the right software and hardware tools.

Answered: What Is Catch Weight in Food?

Understanding and managing catch weight is crucial for farm owners, especially if you're looking to expand your direct-to-consumer sales. You can’t risk upsetting customers by not accurately weighing their meat, seafood, and fresh produce.

With the right software, you can take the guesswork out of catch weight management. But it also helps if you can manage everything from one platform.

GrazeCart simplifies catch weight management by offering robust features like real-time inventory tracking, dynamic pricing capabilities, and streamlined order fulfillment. The GrazeCart platform offers solutions for:

• Selling by weight 
• Delivery and pickup
• Inventory and fulfillment
• Building your e-commerce store

…and more. Catch weight management plays a role in successfully shipping your products. Sign up for the Perishable Shipping Course today to learn how to launch a successful farm to fork shipping program.