Checking advertised weight of butter, early 20th century. One of the tasks of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), established in 1906, is to check that food products are not sold at less then their advertised weights. Federal food and drug inspectors found that short-weighting or under-filling packages was a big problem. This led to the Gould Net Weight Amendment in 1913. Here, a federal worker is checking the advertised weight of packets of butter.