Companies all over the world may be having their printed labels scrutinised more closely after an Australian study found customers could be getting ripped off at meat, fish and deli counters.

The National Measurement Institute visited more than 100 shops and found that poor equipment or human error was leading to a number of mistakes in terms of how much shoppers were charged, the Herald Sun reports.

For instance, some stores were weighing packaging and charging buyers for it along with the cost of their meat, while others were failing to zero scales before testing the weight and price of produce.

There were also cases where the weight of products was not displayed clearly on the peelable labels.

Ingrid Just from consumer organisation Choice said: "For some businesses a small difference in the weight and measurement, if multiplied by many thousands sold, could certainly add up to their benefit."

Back in July, the European Union was considering making changes to bacon packaging in the UK that would force companies to declare if their product was more than five per cent water.

The current benchmark is ten per cent, but many organisations insist this is misleading buyers.

Denny Bros Ltd, 19 September 2011