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Market Gardener

certified digital scale

15 years ago

hello all,

i am in the market for a good digital scale for sales this year and from what i understand it needs to be certified. im not exactly sure if it needs to be certified in the state of Tn. or if i can order one online that has a certifacation

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Comments (4)

henhousefarms
14 years ago
Can not speak for Tennessee in particular but ours have to have a scale that is marked "Certified for Retail Sale" or something to that effect. That rules out most of the cheap home type scales. In Illinois there is a state agency (Weights and Measures division of the Department of Agriculture) that actuall inspects the scale for accuracy with check-weights each year. They slap a sticker on it and your good to go. I assume that your state has a similar program probably through the Ag Department. We have a pair of Tosheba TEC series scales (one 10 lb and one 25 lb) we use and like. They are pretty bulletproof and run off of D cell batteries or AC. They can be found for about $130 new online but can be found places like Craig's List and E-Bay used fairly reasonable.
tn_jed
Original Author
14 years ago
yea what i keep seeing is "legal for trade"

so you have too get your scale checked every year??? is there a large fee for that???? im not sure we have too do it every year but i do know it has to have a sticker on the back. i guess my best option would be to go to the courthouse and ask them be for i buy one. if i can get an old one and have it certified rather than buying a new one i might be able to save a few bucks
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I am pretty much "live and let live" Marla, so, just so you know I am not picking on you guys...just made that comment for reference. I hope it wasn't the wrong thing to do. Mark, I dislike the government micro managing such basic commerce and having so many other restrictions against it. Even if it was stacking things in my favor as a certified grower I don't like that kind of meddling. That's part of it. My perception is that it ends up being the governments role to demoralize small scale entrepreneurs of almost any kind. Compared to the benefits, whatever they may be , the costs are enormous to our freedoms. I don't think I would have a problem convincing people that I was different than someone who brings random commercial produce from an auction. I don't need help doing that. I need my arms not to be tied behind my back. Anyway , the fact of the matter is that there are very few not certified markets...and this one I mentioned that has a non-certifed section , will probably be see it shut down. That said don't assume the certified growers all follow the rules. Once something is on a growers list what is stopping them from getting it somewhere else and taking it to the market? I have had one of the most prestigious growers at one of our markets ask to buy what I did could not sell with no cross certification. I bet this deception goes on all the time. We have people coming from up to hundreds of miles away in a state of 40 million people , employees not farmers. Who could keep tabs on what goes on behind the scenes ?
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Welcome to the forum, Jeff. Hope to see more of you around here! Johnliu, I used an old spring scale up until about a year ago. Love having a digital scale. Use it a lot for 'scaling' dough when I make hamburger & brat buns. Nice to have a uniform size so that they all bake evenly and that I get the X amount of buns that I'm sposed to get out of a recipe. (I note the weight for whatever bun I'm making on the recipe card.) Also comes in very handy when I make a layer cake...for getting the same amount of batter in each pan. Another use I have for it is checking the weight of a prepackaged food item...does that 2# sack of pinto beans really weigh a full 2 pounds? Hint: Sometimes they don't. Bonus factor is that the digital scale takes up a lot less room than the old spring scale. I tend to use mine quite often so it lives on the counter. Last thing is that I made sure that the scale uses common batteries, i.e., AA's. First scale that I got used some not so common (and expensive) batteries. Turned out to be a defective scale that went thru a set of batteries every couple of weeks! We returned that scale to the store & ordered a different one from Amazon.
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hanselmanfarms
14 years ago
In Indiana, NO fee, just have it checked with the Weights and Measure's dept. The scale needs to state on it "Legal for Trade". That tells you that it can be certified. Yes you can buy a used scale. I bought one off of ebay for less than $100. Mine is digital, price computing. It makes it alot easier than to measure then go to the calculator and price it out. I have 2, 1 is Mettler Toledo runs on Dcell batteries or AC, and 1 that I don't remember what brand it came with 2 special batteries that you charge up or use AC.
jbkl2_aemail4u_com
12 years ago
In most states, there isn't a fee or just a small fee for weights and measures to check the scale. The scale needs to state on it somewhere "Legal for Trade" NTEP approved and have a Certificate of Conformance (CoC#). That tells you that it meets certain guidelines and can be certified for buying and selling based on the weights. A scale with price computing function is the way to go. It makes it alot easier than to measure then go to the calculator and price it out. Most come with built in rechargeable battery now.

Here is a link that might be useful: Certified Scales

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