On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > ... > Nominal quantity is a legal lower threshold, not a legal target. Any > precision is therefore self-imposed by the manufacturer.
Not so in the US. The nominal amount of fill declared on a package label (e.g. 100 grams) is the target net amount contained in each package of a lot (batch) of the product. Maximum Allowed Variation (MAV) sets the limits of deviation from the nominal amount. Some individual packages of a sample set of packages selected for inspection may contain *less* than the nominal amount (e.g. 98 grams) and the entire lot of packages may still be legal for sale. Details are specified in NIST Handbook 133, "Checking the Net Contents of Packaged Goods." A specific example is: "The MAV for packages labeled 113 g is 7 g (see Table 2.5)." There are also MAV tables for length, area, volume, and count as well as for mass. Gene.
