Going back to the original ASDA 'initiative' over the packaging of strawberries, the BBC carried an article today concerning reduced package sizes (while keeping the price the same) on just about everything on the supermarket shelves. Interestingly, the change in strawberries from 500 g to 454 g was not mentioned. Everything in the article is metric - even the reader comments were just about all metric, so I cannot see that there really is a huge problem in the average British consumer dealing with metric.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13725050 Cheers John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: John M. Steele To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Monday, June 13, 2011 11:43 PM Subject: [USMA:50625] Re: Reduced standard sized Seriously, I would call the State weights & measures inspectors. The first two are exceptionally misleading as the cans are labelled only in milliliters. You would have to know that a quart is 946 mL to know you are being ripped off. The last one is dual, and slightly more people might know that 28.5 fl oz is not a quart. But it is still deceptive. I assume the cans contain what is marked so the manufacturer is probably legal. The shelf edge sticker is misleading and that is the store. (Does paint fall under UPLR? Is the metric only marking on 2 cans one of the first usages of permissive-metric-only under the UPLR? Too bad that with the store's error, the effect is to cheat the customer.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Michael Payne <metricmik...@gmail.com> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@ColoState.EDU> Sent: Mon, June 13, 2011 4:33:42 PM Subject: [USMA:50616] Reduced standard sized I was amazed when I went to buy paint today that the supposed Quart container was no longer a quart of paint, I think the can is the same size, it's just less inside. A US quart is 946 mL, these cans ranged from 840 mL to 916 mL to 931 mL. Most people don't realize they are getting less. Notice the shelf label still states Quart of whatever paint! Shortchanged? Mike Payne
