Making precise measurements for food-related purposes comes with many benefits. Whether it’s for cooking or for business reasons, investing in a good food scale can go a long way.
Food scales come in a variety of types with each serving a specific purpose. Finding the appropriate scale for your needs can be a bit challenging if you’re not familiar with what each food scale does.
Finding the perfect scale for your personal or business use is important to get accurate measurements. Here’s a glimpse into the types of food scales you can buy.
Digital Portion Scale
Digital portion scales are intended for personal use. Their primary purpose is to measure ingredients accurately. As these scales measure per gram, they can help measure fine ingredients such as spices, flour, sugar, salt, etc.
It can be used for cooking and for controlling your meal portions too.
For cooking, digital portion scales are best used in baking, where precise measurements play an important role in your dish. If you’ve baked before, you should know how big a difference a few extra grams of sugar can make to a batch of cookies.
When it comes to portion control, these scales can be used if you’re on a diet and you want to limit your food intake. It’s an essential tool to have for those undergoing a calorie deficit diet.
Digital portion scales are easy to use and easy to maintain. On the other hand, there’s always a margin of error to consider when it comes to digital scales.
Mechanical Portion Scale
These are similar to digital portion scales, but as the name suggests, this opts to use traditional scale technology over a digital build.
These are best used in business settings because it provides accurate results at a faster pace. Digital portion scales weigh items a few seconds after it's placed on the platform. This type of scale shows results in real-time.
A downside to mechanical portion scales is that it takes more work to use. You’ll need to recalibrate the scale regularly if you want accurate results. For digital scales, all you need to worry about are the batteries,
Price Computing Weighing Scale
This is a type of scale you’re most likely to see inside a grocery store. It’s used to weigh fruits, vegetables, meat, and other food products. The main purpose of this scale is to give the customer a price quotation on food by weight basis.
It’s an essential weighing scale for businesses such as butcher shops, fruit stands, and other food retailers.
Modern price computing weighing scales come with a printer that allows you to produce a barcode for the weighted products. It makes transactions more transparent as it lets your customers know that they’re paying for every gram of the product they’ve purchased.
Hanging Scale
Hanging scales are the most commonly used food scales around. These scales come with a hook on the bottom side where the item to be weighed is placed. A shallow dish can be attached to the hook to measure items.
On the other hand, butcher shops tend to hang the meat directly on the hook, so they don’t have to worry about the tare.
Hanging scales come in digital and analog forms. Digital hanging scales provide more flexibility thanks to the extra features they have. Analog hanging scales, on the other hand, provide faster and more accurate results.
Receiving Scale
Supermarkets and other retail food stores have to ship food in and out of their stores regularly. To save time, it’s good to invest in a receiving scale.
A receiving scale functions similarly to a platform scale. It can weigh heavy objects and is intended for quick and efficient work. Say, for instance, you’re shipping in new stocks of fruits. Placing the receiving scale near the entrance of your storage will allow you to keep track of your inventory efficiently.
Receiving scales are intended for weighing heavy objects such as boxes of fruit and vegetables.
Why Scales Matter In The Food Industry
Scales matter in the food industry for a matter of reasons. For personal use, scales are important as it lets you cook with more precision. It also allows you to stick to your diet, thanks to portioning.
For businesses, scales provide a lot of transparency to transactions. This benefits both you and your customers. Food products like fruits, vegetables, and meat are best sold by weight instead of per unit, after all.
When finding a scale that’s used for food, you should first consider what you want to use it for. Here at Meltrons, we have a wide selection of scales for business and for personal use. If you want to find the right scale, contact us, and we’ll have our team of experts pick out a scale for you!