At 15:30 -0800 02/11/7, Ma Be wrote:
On Thu, 07 Nov 2002 10:27:20 Jim Elwell wrote:Why, indeed! At my breakfast this morning I had delicious orange marmalade produced by "Bonne Maman" (is it possible to be a more typical French company?) from a 370 g jar. This size is perfectly convenient: with our family's consumption, a jar lasts about a fortnight, i.e. matches its conservation time once opened. A 500 g size would last too long, and I would have to renew too often a 250 g one.
Absolutely! Why? If one opens the door to such ridiculous sizes it won't be long till others follow suit, and when they do and people finally complain about the stupidity of such mediocre sizes the argument will finally pop: "well, let me then label these with what they really are, nice 1 qt, 20 oz, 12 oz, 1 lb, etc." Therefore, this is **utterly unacceptable** a danger/risk to run! (Sorry...)At 7 November 2002, 09:04 AM, Ma Be wrote:First of all, there should be a *LEGAL* deterrent developed to PREVENT the use of "weird" sizes, like 227, 28, 29, 454... (you get the picture), simply because:1) These are crappy imperial sizes in disguise. 2) Such absurd sizes can only confuse consumers 3) Such stupid values are obviously totally irrational for package sizing in a metric world 4) These values are significant natural deterrents to per unit calculations.Marcus, you just make American metrication all that much harder to achieve when you promote this type of thinking. It's bad enough to want the government to mandate metric, but now you want the government to mandate what size of packages can be used.
Anyway I am not really interested with the absolute quantity of marmalade in the jar: what I am concerned with is its price per kilogram. It is what I first look at when shopping, it is the main element in my purchasing decision. For me and most European consumers.
Firstly, we're dealing with *EU's PARLIAMENT* here, NOT US Congress! US manufacturers would need to comply with *EU's rules* if they want to sell their products there, just like everybody else would also have to comply with US rules when selling products in US territory! This is just fair and how things should be: **respect** OTHER countries trade rules (for a change!... ;-) ) just like others respect yours!I am not prepared to lobby the EU authorities about that. There are many more important issues, e.g. the real implementation of Directive 80/181/EEC in 2009.
'course not, but the German approach would offer PLENTY, P-L-E-N-T-Y of choices of sizes that would be appropriate, adequate, and economical. Let me just give you a simple example on mass, for instance. Acceptable values according to German laws:It cannot be a "German rule": it would breach EU regulations on Common Market. As far as I know, there is no intention from European authorities to consider such a proposal. The Bonne Maman 370 g of orange marmalade is perfectly legal in Germany.
1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 750, 800, 900, 1 kg!
I say it again: what counts is the specific price (price per unit of mass or volume). Do not consider all consumers as idiots: most of them (of us...) are educated. At least on this matter...
Louis
