Hugh Lund
Consumer Protection Specialist

Agricultural Product Retail Inspections

Retail inspection work performed during the biennium included inspections at 6,895 retail outlets. Inspections cover eggs, potatoes, apples, strawberries, maple products, irradiated foods and refrigeration and freezer units. Owners and producers are notified of violations. Technical assistance is provided to correct problems; administrative penalties are applied for repeat violations.

Retail store inspections provide monitoring of product quality, method of sale, proper weight and measure of products offered for sale and scanner accuracy. The inspections also serve as a method of getting information on possible outlets for Vermont-produced products.

Apple Inspection and Monitoring Programs

All apples to be exported are inspected by this section under the authority of the United States Department of Agriculture. During this biennium, 237 container loads of apples were exported to foreign countries. Vermont producers could not export their apples to foreign markets without this service.

Each year this section inspects approximately 37 controlled atmosphere (CA) storage facilities to examine the use of the facilities to ensure high quality apples throughout the storage season. CA apples can bring a premium price to growers.

In addition to foreign export requirements, apples shipped to California and Arizona must be certified for adequate cold storage temperature and length of time in storage. During this biennium, 3,500 certificates were issued for shipments to California and/or Arizona.

Education

Representatives from this section provide quality control workshops during the year, work with vocational agriculture instructors and their students throughout the state to demonstrate proper techniques used in grading agricultural products, and provide technical assistance to individual producers and groups.

Each year, the section personnel participate in 12 county maple meetings. Presentations at these meetings covered syrup quality, judging of maple products, nutritional labeling, lead testing and hydrometer testing. These meetings provide information to about 1,000 producers each year.

Section personnel also serve as judges at many county fairs, the Vermont Farm Show and the Vermont Maple Festival. They follow up on problems encountered during judging to help the producers determine what caused the problems which prevented their entries from receiving a first prize. As a result of these efforts, the producers are able to put a better quality product in the marketplace.

Education still continues to serve as the best means of quality control and of achieving compliance. During this biennium, technical assistance continued to be offered by Consumer Assurance personnel for retailers. Subjects have included unit pricing requirements and laser scanning, proper scale use and maintenance, and correct weighing procedures. This information is provided as a service to retailers to help them become more aware of and better comply with legal requirements. Section personnel continue to attend fuel oil, gasoline and LP gas industry meetings and conducted seminars for individual businesses and trade association groups.

Technical assistance is also provided to industries in assessing the suitability of new equipment and its ability to meet the accuracy requirements of Vermont's weights and measures laws. Staff members keep abreast of the latest developments in weighing and measuring technology. For instance, individual inspectors continue to be certified in the training modules prepared and presented by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The increased education level allows the inspection staff to better achieve compliance with Vermont regulations by providing them with information to assist and achieve cooperation from device owners and users.

Maple Syrup Quality Program

Technical assistance is offered to producers who encounter quality problems with their product. These problems range from syrup darkening in color, to off-flavors. Office and field staff work with prodcuers and offer suggestions on how to correct problems.

The maple dealer/processor licensing program has been stable with 14 dealer/processors being licensed each year. This licensing requires continuous monitoring of imported syrup and deals with labeling of syrup sold to consumers. Section personnel review records of licensees to ensure compliance with state and U.S. Customs regulations.

Testing maple syrup for lead has been emphasized during the past biennium. Concern over the presence of lead in the food we eat, particularly for young children, has initiated a massive testing effort by the department and sugarmakers themselves. Over 200 samples of syrup were tested by the department as well as several hundred by the Maple Sugarmakers Association and by individual sugarmakers.

Poultry and Egg Inspection Program

This section administers the USDA Frozen Poultry Inspection program, which inspects frozen poultry warehoused for the Vermont School Lunch Program. Core temperatures are taken of poultry samples as well as monitoring the delivery truck temperature and condition of product as it arrives.

We also administer the USDA Shell Egg Program, which ensures consistency of egg quality and provides safeguards to the public health. The program regulates processing and distribution to prevent the movement or sale of eggs that are misbranded, or otherwise in violation of the Egg Products Inspection Act.

The number of poultry farms in Vermont has decreased significantly in recent years as a result of out-of-state eggs being offered for sale at a lower cost. The number of poultry farms with 3,000 or more laying hens, or who repackage eggs from other producers, remain at three. These producers are qualified and registered with the Federal Shell Egg Surveillance Program. This biennium, 26 quarterly inspections were performed.

LP Gas Program

This biennium has shown continued growth and rapidly changing meter technology in the propane gas industry. While existing companies continued to add additional delivery vehicles, the major sources of growth were the entry into the business by existing heating oil retailers and the arrival of new propane retail organizations. A growing number of companies have implemented the use of computerized meters. This continued growth has resulted in the department having a second inspector certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to perform LP gas meter tests and calibrations. Both certified inspectors have been trained in the calibration and operation of the computerized meters.

A major development in the industry in 1996 has been the arrival of large out of state and international corporations on the Vermont retail propane scene. Throughout the state, we have had well established Vermont companies sell out to these large out of state interests. This development requires additional attention from our investigators, as some companies bring in marketing ideas and billing systems that do not comply with Vermont laws and regulations. Time must be invested in an educational effort to bring these companies into compliance.

We are constantly reviewing our testing program to gain added efficiency from the latest meter technologies while providing the best possible service to the retail propane community and delivering the most accurate product metering to the consumer.

Consolidation among major companies has changed the face of propane marketing in Vermont. We have worked to assure that these new companies are familiar with Vermont laws. With the price of propane for heating in excess of $1.25 per gallon, the investment in this program is returning a dividend to the taxpayers of the state. Accurate meter calibration continues to insure that the public receives fair measure, companies receive fair compensation and the State's Fuel Assistance program receives accurate deliveries of LP gas.

Licensing & Registration Programs

This section issues a variety of registrations and licenses. The following licenses and registrations were issued during the biennium.

Weights & Measures Inspections

Weights and measures programs include testing packaged commodities for appropriate weight and measure; inspection of fuel oil and LP gas delivery trucks and motor fuel dispenser meters; and inspection of heavy duty scales used both commercially and for law enforcement. The following is a summary of device and package weight inspections for the past biennium:

Measurement Center

The Metrology Lab provides the legal basis for all weights and measures enforcement by certifying field standards and test equipment used by inspectors in the verification of scales and meters. Also certified are portable scales used by Departments of Transportation and Public Safety in the enforcement of truck weight requirements.

This same testing service is offered to and used by scale and meter service agencies and other businesses throughout Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. During this biennium the following devices were tested in our lab:

Enforcement

A weights and measures program has existed in Vermont for over 220 years. The goal of the organization has always been equity between the buyer and seller in commercial transactions where the value of commodities or services are determined by weight or measure. Because most people are no longer producers or sellers of commodities or regulated services (unlike times gone by when many Vermonters were producers of measurable things such as milk, meat, produce, wool or wood), the focus of our current activities is more proactive towards consumer protection, thus our name changed to Consumer Assurance in 1987.

The Consumer Protection Section, by implementing nationally recognized standards, protects Vermonters from unscrupulous business practices in the weights and measures arena. By fair and knowledgeable enforcement of these rules, a secondary objective is also achieved; that being a level playing field for businesses to compete. Petroleum distributors, retail grocers, construction material producers and farmers are examples of businesses which benefit from consistent enforcement of basic weights and measures standards.

Consumer Protection officials and weights and measures specialists have presented training schools to major grocery chains and petroleum distributors in order to explain weights and measures requirements. Our inspectors have made dozens of visits to production plants and other facilities to offer technical assistance. Most companies correct weights and measures violations as soon as possible. Our inspectors reject about 5% of the small and large scales, gas pumps, oil and LP gas truck meters inspected annually, short weight packages and incorrect labeling.

The business is given every possible chance to correct weights and measures violations. If after repeated attempts by the department to get compliance, or if the violation is so severe that the company should have caught and corrected it, the Commissioner may impose an administrative penalty on the violator. The penalty can be up to $1,000 per violation, with a maximum of $25,000. During this biennium, the Commissioner issued two administrative penalties. One of the penalties was to a gas station for a short measure pump and the other was to a large chain store for short weight cheese. Consumer Assurance inspectors have since conducted follow-up inspections at these locations and found good compliance.

The delivery of full quantities and the elimination of misrepresentation are under the watchful eyes of Vermont weights and measures inspectors. Hundreds of painstaking tests are required to bring about compliance with Vermont laws against quantity misrepresentation, and these tests do successfully uncover problems. Therefore, consumers are able to buy agricultural products with little fear of getting less than the amount for which they pay. Merchants also favor weights and measures enforcement since it prevents them from giving away product as well as protecting them from shorting their customers.

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