As problems go it doesn't amount to a hill of (baked) beans in this crazy world, but James Wood would like the scales to tip a little more in his favour.
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Three times in recent weeks the New Zealander has weighed the baked beans from Wattie's 420 gram cans, and has found the contents to be wanting.
He set out his concerns in postings on Wattie's Facebook page.
The company responded with an apology.
Wood's first posting included a picture of an empty 420g can next to some scales on which there was a bowl of beans. The scales showed a weight of 386g.
Hey there Wattie's NZ. I have purchased a can of your baked beans. On the package it says net weight= 420g (Definition...Posted by James Wood on Friday, October 2, 2015
A Heinz Wattie's spokesman said it was "very rare" for cans to be underweight, and 386g would be "very significantly under-filled".
"That's what we can't understand."
In a second posting, Wood included video of himself weighing the contents of a can of beans. The footage showed Wood opening the can and emptying it into a bowl on the scales which had been zeroed.
Take 2: Decided to weigh another can of baked beans / needed them for the Sunday fry up!!! Thought I would video it to...Posted by James Wood on Saturday, October 3, 2015
"This time it weighed a little more than last time. But still a lot under the 420g net shown on the tin," Wood said.
While the weight reading is unclear on the footage shown on the Watties Facebook page, the original of the video shows a figure of 397g.
Wood decided to start weighing beans after eating 210g from one can, which should have been half the contents. He thought the remaining amount looked to be "a lot smaller", so he weighed it and found it to be roughly 180g, he said.
"I'm into my body building, so I count all my carbs and protein."
Wood wondered whether the weight may vary depending on bean to sauce ratio, "but shouldn't they still be a lot closer to the weight shown on the tin?".
"A little over the weight would be a lot more honest in my opinion."
On Tuesday, Wood said he had been contacted by a Watties representative who noted the can in Wood's video looked to have the right bean to sauce ratio, and it looked like it was filled up. Wood agreed the can was fully filled.
Someone had queried whether the scales were calibrated, Wood said. To check he had weighed a New Zealand $1 coin, which came in at 8g - the weight it was supposed to be.
He was surprised at the amount of attention his postings had received, with the first getting 564 likes between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday lunchtime.
"I put it up kind of as a joke, and just to put it out there," Wood said.
Some people were saying, "who really cares, what's the big deal".
"I don't care about me not getting 30g of baked beans in that one sitting," he said. If the problem was widespread it would be more of an issue.
Heinz Wattie's said it operated its 420g baked been processing line to target fill weights 3g or 4g above the label weight.
"We are confident that our average weight for baked beans is above the 420g label weight. We have a lot of statistical information which shows that we more than meet the average required in terms of over-filling cans by 3-4g," the company said.
"With 36 operating heads on the filler and producing 27,000 cans an hour, there can be small variations."
Regulations allowed for a small number of packages to be under the stated quantity on the package.
"At Wattie's there are a number of checks and balances. We randomly sample cans from the line. If they are below the allowable variation of label weight, the production run of one hour is quarantined and the line is checked and if necessary, reset."
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