Phil has hit the nail on the head. Packaging and labeling laws are
scattered among diverse agencies, disorganized to the neophyte's eyes,
and often arcane. Some are enacted (statutory) laws, some are
regulations, as he said, and yet others may be by local tradition. Many
regulatory bodies have their hands in this mess. Some things are not
even regulated. And yet, the bulk of what we want to know can be found
by looking in just a few places.
We members of USMA and others in this group ask people to expend some
effort to metricate. In all fairness we should expend some effort into
researching what it is that we want to have changed.
I'll work through an example for you. I now reside in Tennessee and have
an interest in becoming involved in truck farming (to farmers markets,
etc.). I called the Tennessee Department of Agriculture's Regulatory
Services and told the woman who answered what I was looking for. Within
seconds I was connected to "Bob" who told me that, yes, Tennessee does
use the NCWM models, such as the UPLR.
Even though I told him I was a member of the National Conference on
Weights and Measures and had a current hard copy of Handbook 130 in
hand, Bob was not content to set me adrift but insisted on guiding me
right to the answer I sought. In particular he said that what I was
looking for was on page 234 (within "Interpretations and Guidelines") of
the 2008 edition of Handbook 130. There I saw that cherry tomatoes could
be sold by weight or by dry measure. If sold by dry measure, they "must
be sold in containers standardized by the Berry Basket and Box Code in
Handbook 44." Regular tomatoes can be similarly sold but if sold in dry
measure they must be sold in units of not less than 1 peck.
Of course, Bob could have just told me the answer on cherry tomatoes,
but he was kind enough to make sure I could find similar answers in the
future. He said he could even fax copies of appropriate pages to people.
The answer in your state may vary, as Phil pointed out below! Please,
folks, let's do some research. In the long run, that will make our
complaints, requests, and suggestions sound well-founded. And thus we
are more likely to be listened to.
Those handbooks can be found online at
http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Publications/H130-08.cfm
http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Publications/H44-08.cfm
If you go to the NCWM site you can pay for hard copies. The July meeting
of the NCWM will be in Vermont this year.
Jim
Phil Chernack wrote:
Where do you get that it is illegal to sell by the "dry pint?" Produce
is not covered by the FPLA, It is up to states to determine how produce
is measured. Keep in mind that most laws governing the sale of dairy
and produce go back 100 or so years. In some cases, these laws have
been updated. As for metric, even though the law may specifically state
that a particular item is to measured in some kind of bushel or
whatever, most states have a blanket law that permits (or more to the
point, doesn't prohibit) the use of metric measures for all purposes.
What these laws don't do is make metric mandatory.
The best bet is to go to your state legislature's website and look up
the statutes regarding metric. Keep in mind that not all law is
statutory but may be administrative as well. Administrative law is made
through a rules process with public comment rather than the legislative
process.
Folks, you have to get away from this notion that all measurement law is
covered by the FPLA and UPLR. Certain things are governed by the FPLA.
The UPLR is not even a law, rather a model law for states to adopt
regarding all sorts of things, not just metric-only labeling. Some
states have adopted permissive metric-only labeling without adopting the
UPLR as written.
If you really want to have an impact on metric related law, it helps to
do the following:
1. Live in the state you are trying to influence.
2. Research what the current laws are regarding measurement
3. Find out the appropriate parties to contact (legislative and
administrative)
4. Plan out a well-reasoned and thoughtful position like consumer
protection (rather than "the rest of the country/world does")
If you don't follow these steps (or a variation of them) you are just
tilting at windmills.
Phil
On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Pierre Abbat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
I've bought some cherry tomatoes that came in a package marked "one
dry pint",
with no metric equivalent. (I've also seen some packages with an
equivalent
in milliliters.) I sent an email pointing out that labeling a grocery
only "one dry pint" is illegal and asking that they be labeled in
grams (I
weigh tomatoes when making a recipe).
I just brought up the FPLA and there is no mention of a dry pint
anywhere.
There's no mention of a liter either. The regulations mention dry
pints, but
is it legal to sell tomatoes by volume? I think they're too big to be
accurately measured by volume and should be sold by mass.
Pierre
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
