On Sun, 10 Nov 2002 12:00:15 Stephen C. Gallagher wrote: >... >Because then they would have to have separate manufacturing procedures >for Canada. It's much easier for the manufacturers to make a few more >of the same items they make for the US, and then apply a label that >complies with Canadian standards, then it is to have to retool their >machines to be able to package rounded or rational metric amounts. > This is only partially true. Changing filling may indeed require "retooling", so to speak, but since NC machines do that it wouldn't be tremendously difficult to schedule batching in accordance with volumes dispatched. "Retooling" would occur only twice a day.
On the other hand the *smart* thing to do would be to adopt the larger package in the product line and stick with it, just like So Good folks did. >For example, orange juice sold in Canada is normally from the >US, where it is also packaged. The packages are half-gallon cartons. >In order to make 2 L carton, for the Canadian market, their packaging >machines would have to be retooled to fit the larger sized carton. I've actually measured these cartons and the difference is very small, conveyor assemblies could be easily "retrofitted" to accommodate the slightly larger size. If a company purchase a conveyor system that would not have this simple flexibility then they lost money BIG time! I know that, again I repeat, because I've worked for a conveyor company! >They simply use the half-gallon carton, with a label that that complies >with Canada's bilingual and ingredient labelling requirements. It's >labelled as 1.89 L, > There would certainly be enough content space in those cartons to accommodate 1.9 L BTW!... ;-) >... >The Canadian market is one tenth the size of the US market. >It's just not economical for them to have one manufacturing >system for the US and a separate one for Canada. >... ? Only partially true. If these companies are ONLY marketing their product outside the US to Canada. On the other hand, if they go "international" I'm sorry to say but the balance scale would significantly decisively shift to the metric side! I.e. they should seriously consider adopting the 2-L cartons instead. And this is where my big beef is. They want to push this stupidity onto others. I've just found out recently that soya oil is now being sold in Brazil in hideous 900 mL when in the past we only saw 1 L containers! And guess what. Why? You got it! The containers are **the exact same ones** that in North America is housing 946 mL products!!... (judge for yourselves...) !$%@##$@#%@# Marcus Marcus ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
