Tare weight is the weight of a vehicle or container when empty, used to calculate net weight for charging customers, taxing loaded trucks, and tracking loads. It is important in shipping and culinary industries, and can be easily calculated using scales with tare weight settings.
Tare weight is the weight of a vehicle or container when empty. This weight is used in net weight calculations for activities ranging from properly charging customers for consumables to taxing loaded trucks as they cross borders. To calculate the net weight of a load, the container is weighed to tare, loaded, and then reweighed for the gross weight; the tare is subtracted from the gross to know how heavy the load is. This term can also be used in the culinary or food service industries, where it can refer to the weight of the inedible parts of different foods.
Tare weights in transport
Many vehicles have plates with information such as the tare weight. This is especially common with rail cars and trucks used in shipping so that the net weight of the cargo can be easily calculated at any time without having to empty the vehicle to know the tare weight. Such vehicles may be driven or pulled on large and very sensitive scales for the purpose of weighing at borders and check-in stations.
In shipping, tare is extremely important because it is used to determine the value of a shipment and to calculate taxes. Truck drivers in many countries pay a flat rate of tax depending on the weight of their loads, to ensure that trucking companies, which contribute to roadway degradation, help maintain it. Weights are also used to track loads, ensuring no fraudulent activity occurs; this is especially important along borders where trade tariffs may be calculated. If you notice a change in weight from stop to stop, it could indicate that the goods have been unloaded illegally.
Smaller scales and consumer use
Many scales have a “tare weight” setting, which allows the user to place an empty container on the scale and press the tare button to zero the scale. In some cases, weights that are used regularly can be saved in a scale. A shop may want to save the setting for the glass jars it uses for olive oil, for example, so that oil sold by weight can be measured more quickly.
Cooking and culinary use
Many cooks use scales for recipes that call for ingredients by weight, rather than volume. Weight measurements are much more reliable than volume measurements, which is why many baking recipes list ingredients by weight. Tare can also refer to excess portions of food not used in cooking. A chef who needs five pounds of apples for a recipe, for example, must consider the weight of the core and seeds that aren’t used in preparing the dish. These components may be referred to as a “tare” and are not part of the final weight needed to follow a recipe.
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