Catch weight

Definition

An item of variable weight, such as cheese or meat, billed on what the piece actually weighs.

Why It Matters

It sounds like a billing detail and it is really a systems question. Catch-weight items have to be weighed at pick, priced at the weighed figure and reconciled against the purchase, and a house whose software cannot do that is losing margin quietly on every case. In diligence it is a useful probe of operational maturity: ask how catch-weight lines are picked and invoiced, then look at the gross margin on those categories against the rest. A gap usually means the process is manual.