I think we should all read this and note how the British shops under BWMA guidance try to subvert metric legislation. Also, how BWMA operatives go into shops or write letters to those they think will make a difference. What are the pro-metric British doing to make sure the shopkeeprs view the BWMA as a bunch of nutcases blowing hotair?
Euric http://www.bwmaonline.com/Business%20-%20Survival%20Guide%20to%20Metric%20Law.htm The Queen's new business venture - the Windsor Farm Shop - sells and prices loose goods exclusively in metric. I spoke to the manager, a former executive of M&S, and he said that in the seven days the shop had been open, I was the first and only person to complain. The phone number, for anyone else interested in having a word, is 01753 623 800, and the website is www.windsorfarmshop.co.uk Below is the text of an email I sent: Dear Sir, Visiting your otherwise excellent new Royal Farm shop today, I was very surprised to see that you have an unusually strict policy of labelling your goods strictly in metric units only. In this policy you are some way away from the 'mainstream' dual-units policy used by all of the major supermarket chains; and, with the move by the Tesco chain, amongst others, towards increasing the prominence given to UK units in loose-goods labelling, you appear to be moving against the tide of current practice. None of this would matter, of course, if it were what your customers wanted. The 'Big Four' use dual marking not to make things more difficult for themselves, or out of any sense of innate conservatism, but because they have done their research, and discovered that this is what their customers want. You may think otherwise. You may think that your customers are more metric-friendly, even though they appear to be on average somewhat more elderly than the typical Tesco or Sainsbury shopper. In your first week of trading, you say, no-one at all mentioned any difficulty in understanding the metric measures (although, I must say, on the basis of all of about twenty minutes' observation, there did seem to be a lot of "A smallish bit.no, a bit bigger than that.yes, that's about it," and "About five or six slices." - the sort of thing you do when you're not wholly confident with your grasp of the measures but too polite or embarrassed to say). Whatever. But it just so happens that I have recently completed compiling a comprehensive survey of all of the independent market research on the subject of weights and measures carried out in this country in the past five years, covering many thousands of people in every part of the country, of all ages and both sexes. I attach an email copy. In a nutshell, though, the research shows that around three quarters of the entire UK public, young and old, think in UK units; and the figure is even higher amongst the over-50 age group so much in evidence amongst the customers of your shop. More than this, a significant proportion, in research, prove unable to accurately judge quantity in metric weights. Only 28% of the public, for example, can correctly guess the typical number of average-sized apples in a kilo. So what I would like to ask is not that you change your metric weighing or pricing policy, but that you consider showing the equivalent prices per pound as well, in the same way that all the major supermarkets and just about every other retailer in the country do. Also, you might even consider doing a quick bit of market research yourself: just type out a piece of paper with the following question on: "To help us serve you better, how would you like us to price our loose foods?": (a) price per kilo/100g only (b) price per kilo/100g and price per pound/quarter Yours sincerely, Mr W. Cairns Another: I have received the following reply from the Consumers Association to an e-mail I sent to them recently. A copy of my e-mail to them is beneath. Best wishes, Stephen Hello Stephen, Ref: 06/POP/319/10.3 Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the metric labelling on food stuffs. Whilst this is not an area we have reported on, I have passed on your enquiry to the relevant research team for possible investigation and inclusion in a future issue of Which? Although we are not always abel to follow up suggestions immediately because of the large number of products and services awaiting investigation, any ideas do help to keep us in touch with our members' views and help us to produce magazines in line with their main interests. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us. Regards Julia Mackie Customer Services LETTER TO CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION Dear Sir, May I enquire as to what action the Consumer's Association is taking, or intends to take, over the great metric rip-off currently being foisted upon British consumers? Every day in the shops, one retailer after another is indulging in the great rip-off, reducing the size of cans and other containers so that instead of goods weighing, say, 16oz they are suddenly weighing 14.8oz, 14.5oz, or less - all hidden by the use of metric product marking, so that the consumer - me! - can't make easy comparisons with what the 16oz price was last week! I fail to understand your total silence on this issue - which is of vital interest to literally tens of millions of consumers, who are daily being cheated by the major food wholesalers. I can't think of any consumer who isn't affected! You champion the interests of consumers - or do you? I can't take on a company like Heinz, or like Sainsburys, with any hope of winning. You can. So can I ask what you intend to do to protect consumers from being cheated in this way? Yours faithfully Stephen Poppitt Yet another, Getting shops to sell in pounds and ounces September 12 2002 at 9:06 PM Frederick Rodriguez ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- I've been premeditating such a move for some time, especially if everything' s priced solely in metric whilst the shop has dual scales. Late this afternoon (check date of this report) I thought I would contribute some influence/pressure on a certain convenience store in my area to sell me some baking potatoes in pounds and ounces. Half of all their loose fruit and vegetables were dual priced and the other half (very recently) found its way to being priced solely by the kilo. Usually in any case I tend to go to the greengrocers a few shops down where they sell in pounds and ounces, aiming to maximise revenue for them and minimise that of metric shops (especially if they have scales with a superfluous Pound/Euro switch - HELLO, BOTH CURRENCIES ARE DECIMAL!! - surely they could cover the Pound sign with a sticker showing a Euro sign should there come such a bad move as the UK entering the Euro). If I remember rightly, that convenience store did have solely metric scales, but they now seem to have dual scales (good on them), which I spotted yesterday when I happened to be buying a bar of chocolate. I knew the scales to be dual since the screen where the weight is displayed had under the left had side the characters "lb/oz" and under the right: "kg" (I'm surprised that that model is not listed in the "Dual metric-lb/oz scales and were to get them" page on the website). I obtained a few baking potatoes from the rack just outside the front and when they were being weighed, I asked the lady behind the counter if I could see what the weighed in pounds and ounces (the scales were switched to metric probably since they were first being used). She did not seem to speak much English (neither do any of the others running that shop as far as I'm aware) so I showed her the "lb/kg" button (most convenience stores in London are run by ethnic minorities - nevertheless, plenty are still selling in pounds and ounces!). I thought I should give them something to think about, especially as they were beginning to price their fruit and veg solely by the kilo: after all, most people either don't understand metric units or they understand them via converting them to imperial. It's a sort of thing that ought to help secure pounds and ounces in shops, encouraging them at least to use the imperial system as much as the law at the moment says. Some people are simply tolerant towards unwanted metrication, usually if they don't know that it's not the end - did anyone apart from the BWMA look at the metrication of Royal Mail and expect such an intolerant Act of Parliament like that of Michael Hesaltine in 1994?
