Just got home from the Washington DC Metric Forum on changes to the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) to allow voluntary Metric only labeling in lieu of the present requirement that both inch pound and metric have to be listed.
Did not hear any anti proposal statements, a couple of manufactures (Proctor and Gamble and Georgia Pacific) stated emphatically that the present restriction to metric plus foot pound will cost them money and trade come 2010 when the EU implements metric only labeling requirements. This was brought up numerous times. Lorelle Young and Jim Frysinger gave a great talk, some trade organizations asked questions, mostly where is this amendment to the FPLA in the legislation process? Apparently waiting in the White house for action by the administration, NIST has moved it thru the US Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, etc. It has to be passed by congress before it becomes law; we all know how long that might take. Interesting to know that when two values (Inch/Pound and Grams) are placed on a package, the larger one is what controls the net content, if we have something that lists 1 LB / 450 g, the pound net mass is the one that governs as it's the larger. If they had listed 1 Quart / 1 Liter, the liter would have governed as it is the larger quantity declaration. Proctor and Gamble had good examples of net content labels required, when also stated in Spanish and French as well as English the current law states that all listed units (fluid ounces, pints, milliliters, etc.) have to be listed in each language, this leads to an incredible mess in the content declaration part of the package, and takes up an large amount of space that on small packages can be better used for safety information. One of the handouts was a letter from the Food Marketing Institute based in DC that listed numerous objections to the proposed amendment. Most of it the familiar verbiage by people who are anti metric. Example: The majority of consumers do not understand metric measurement. Moreover, consumers are not demanding that their food products be packaged and labeled using the metric system. This can be quickly refuted; I intend to send them an email doing this. What I learnt is that companies note consumer comments made to their customer comment numbers both pro and negative. What this means is that for 5 minutes a day each of us needs to call these (free) numbers and express our agreement with manufactures who lead the pack and market metric sized product packages (e.g. Proctor and Gamble). And also to companies who don't, to tell them this is what you want. One person, cannot recall what company said they had not heard from consumers wanting metric labeling, obviously I did not have their number. --- Michael Payne --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.
