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Some boxes of Cheerios, bags of Loblaws chips weigh far less than advertised, shoppers find

Chances are you've scanned your grocery bill for mistakes, but have you ever checked the weight of products you've bought? Some Ontario shoppers have uncovered packages of Cheerios and a Loblaws brand of potato chips that weighed far less than what was printed on the package. 

General Mills has admitted a packaging error with its honey nut and multi-grain jumbo two-packs of Cheerios breakfast cereal. The weight printed on each cereal box is double the actual amount. The flawed jumbo packs have been selling in Canadian stores for more than four months and are still on the shelves, CBC News has confirmed. 

"It should have been corrected fairly quickly," said food industry consultant Walter Dullemond, who has viewed the packaging. "It's misleading to consumers and the law is very clear that labels may not be misleading." In response to a CBC News inquiry, U.S.-based General Mills said the correct packaging will appear in stores sometime this month. 

It's not the swift action customer Paul Jay had hoped for when he alerted the food company to the problem back in July. "It didn't seem to me that they wanted to do anything about it," he said.

Cheerios isn't the only product to face customer scrutiny over weight. In September, two people posted TikTok videos that showed unopened Loblaws-brand No Name potato chips weighing far less than the amount printed on the bags.

Jocelyn Dilworth of Toronto posted one of the videos. She said she bought two bags of No Name ripple chips at Loblaws-owned No Frills in September and weighed one of them after noticing it was much lighter than the other bag. CBC News has independently verified Dilworth's lighter bag of chips weighs 103 grams — almost half the 200 grams printed on the bag. "It was frustrating because we're all trying to save wherever we can," she said. 

Loblaw Companies reached out to the two customers and launched an investigation. "While the investigation indicates this is an extremely rare occurrence, the final quality of the product obviously does not live up to our expectation," the Canadian retailer told CBC News in an email. Loblaws said it's working closely with its vendor to ensure this doesn't happen again. 

The CFIA said food companies must ensure their products comply with Canada's labelling regulations. Companies found breaking the rules could be ordered to relabel packages, recall the product if there are health concerns and/or pay a fine, said the agency.

Read the full story here.

Indonesia eruption

Students are seen at school as Mount Marapi volcano spews volcanic ash as seen from Nagari Batu Palano in Agam, West Sumatra province, Indonesia, December 4, 2023, in this photo taken by Antara Fotovia (Antara Foto/Iggoy el Fitra/Reuters)

(Iggoy el Fitra/Antara Foto/Reuters)

Students watch from school as the Mount Marapi volcano spews ash, as seen from Nagari Batu Palano in Agam, West Sumatra province, Indonesia, on Monday. Rescuers searching the hazardous slopes found more bodies among the climbers caught by a surprise eruption two days ago, raising the number of confirmed and presumed dead to 23. Read more about the eruption here.

In brief

High-income households would tend to be the biggest winners if the federal carbon tax were scrapped, while lower-income households would tend to be hurt the most, according to Statistics Canada modelling software widely used by economists. University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe extracted data from the latest version of the model and shared it with CBC News to illustrate how a hypothetical axing of the federal carbon tax, as proposed by the Opposition Conservatives, would affect different households. Tombe says the general trend Canada-wide is the same: "A clear majority of households do receive rebates that are larger than the carbon taxes they pay for." One thing that sets households apart, however, is their income level. "If we got rid of the carbon tax and the rebate," Tombe said, "then this would harm a much larger fraction of lower- and middle-income households than it would higher-income households." Read more on this issue — and do the calculations for your household — here.

CBC News observed the personal information of three dozen people visible on shipping labels on display at a Toronto liquidation retailer that sells returned and overstocked items from Amazon and other online retailers. Now those customers are at risk of identity theft, a privacy expert says. "Anyone should know in this day and age that personal identifiers linked with anything without their consent, which is obviously the case here, can cause, at times, unbelievable harm to those individuals, beyond just the invasion of privacy," said Ann Cavoukian, who is now executive director of the Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre. "Don't do it, especially if you're a big company like Amazon. You should know better." The retailer, Top Binz, says going forward it will check to ensure all personal information is removed from the products it sells. The federal privacy commissioner's office says it will look into the issue, while Amazon says it's launching an internal investigation of its own. Read more here.

An Alberta woman says she has to repay almost $10,000 — plus interest — after her line of credit was drained and the money transferred out of her Bank of Montreal account without her permission. Charlene MacNeil, 37, said she panicked when she received a credit limit alert email notifying her she had just $33 of available credit left on her $15,000 line of credit at BMO. She checked her account, noticed a lot of money was missing, and immediately called the bank's corporate hotline to report it. The next morning at her local branch in Tofield, Alta., she learned that $10,300 had been transferred from her line of credit to her chequing account. Then, $9,702 was sent from her chequing account to a bill payee she didn't recognize. BMO investigated the transactions and says it will not reimburse her for the missing amount because safeguarding her bank card number, passwords, passcodes and devices was MacNeil's responsibility, not the bank's. Read more here.

The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois are calling on House Speaker Greg Fergus to resign after he appeared in a video message played at the recent Ontario Liberal leadership convention. Fergus apologized in the House on Monday for appearing in a video message he said was meant to be a tribute to a personal friend, outgoing interim provincial Liberal leader John Fraser. "I would like to reassure members that the principles of respect, impartiality and decorum are values I continue to prioritize for my Speaker's tenure," he said. In the video, Fergus appears from the Speaker's chamber and in the traditional robes of his role, speaking between segments recorded by former provincial Liberal leaders Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty. Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer — a former Speaker — rose in the House after question period and called on Fergus to step down. "What would happen if an NHL referee appeared in a locker room for one of the teams, wearing his referee's outfit and giving a bit of a pep talk?" Scheer said. "How long do we think that NHL referee would continue in that post?" Read more here.

Now here's some good news to start your Tuesday: When a group of conservation scientists set off in search of a long-lost species of South Africa mole in 2021, their colleagues warned them not to get their hopes up. But now, the team from the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the University of Pretoria have confirmed the elusive creature lives on. Last seen in 1936, De Winton's golden moles are completely blind, tiny enough to hold in your hand, and have iridescent coats of golden fur. Researchers used a trained dog to sniff out places where the critters may have been and collected shed DNA from the soil to confirm their presence. Then, on a South African beach, they met one in the flesh. The discovery was well worth the time and effort, said Cobus Theron, an EWT conservation manager. "We have so many doom-and-gloom stories about the environment and about conservation and just our human impact on the planet," he said. "And so for me, you know, it was really just to say: Can we go out and can we rediscover something? And can we bring excitement and positive stories back? This dune-dwelling mole is really a story of hope." Read about — and see — the mole here.

First Person: Life isn't fair. University shouldn't be a luxury. These are lessons I learned in rural Kenya

As a child in Kenya, Robel Ng'ong'a spent every Christmas vacation visiting extended family in a rural village. That's where he grew to realize that his friends and family had little opportunity to fully pursue their educational dreams. Now Ng'ong'a has a dream to help them. Read the first-person piece here.

Front Burner: Alleged India-linked assassination plot deepens

Today in history: Dec. 5

1484: Pope Innocent VIII issues his Witch Bull, ordering an inquisition to systematically discover, torture and execute witches throughout Europe.

1837: William Lyon Mackenzie, journalist and politician, leads a rebel force down Yonge Street from Montgomery's Tavern hoping to capture Toronto. The force was repelled by Loyalist guards who easily defeated the rebels two days later. 

1933: Prohibition ends in the United States.

1968: About 60 windows in the Quebec legislature are broken by snowballs during a demonstration. Thousands of students protested the expected introduction of a bill to safeguard English-language schools in the province. Police estimated 90 per cent of the students were under the age of 16.