You have a great idea for a retail business.  You do a business plan, secure financing, find a location, buy inventory, hire employees, and open the doors.  By what method do you sell your commodity?  How must it be labeled?

It’s easy to run afoul of regulations you didn’t know existed and didn’t know applied.  A piece of ready to eat candy, a donut, a beverage, a piece of meat, clothing, a length of silver chain, all these commodities have regulations for packaging, labeling and methods of sale.  Is it sold by weight (gram, pound, ton), measure (foot, square yard, meter), or unit (piece, pair, dozen), etc?  This defines the method of sale.

The State of Texas regulates weights and measures through the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA).  TDA has adopted as its standard parts of the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology Handbook 130.  The relevant parts are Uniform Packaging and Labeling Regulation, starting on page 57, and Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, starting on page 93.

If you are selling a commodity by weight, you must register your measuring device, i.e. scale, with TDA.  Devises are registered by their location, must be registered annually and must be inspected by TDA every four years.  The fee to register a scale with the capacity of 0-4,999 pounds is $15.00.

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