Random observation

[pne]

Jam, in Germany, is nearly always sold in 450 gramme jars; a strange number, since 500 g would have been more "natural" since it's a round number.

Probably not a coincidence that 1 lb = 453.6 g....

Comments

[ilia-yasny.livejournal.com]

I just wondered yesterday, why in Russia rice and buckwheat are sold in 900 g (not 1 kg) packs. It seems that the reason is the same...

[serge2000.livejournal.com]

Well... It seems that you are right.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Bah.

[tungol.livejournal.com]

Butter here in Canada is normally sold in units of 454 grammes - or, in other words, a pound labelled in metric units.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Heh. I heard that the situation in the UK is similar, with milk being sold in "pints", etc. etc.; due to legal requirements, packaging is marked in metric, but the amounts correspond to round numbers of Imperial units rather than round numbers of metric units.

[tungol.livejournal.com]

Milk here is usually sold in multiples or fractions of a litre, so truly metric.

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

Hm... perhaps this is the reason for the popular Coca-Cola bottle size being 600mL (approximately a pint)?

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd heard somewhere that if you ask for "ein Pfund" worth of something in Germany, they gave you 500 g as a matter of course. I didn't realise y'all were in the same boat as us here in Canada.

Very little here is in "round" metric units; outside of milk in 250mL/500mL/1L/2L/4L sizes, and pop in 2L bottles, everything else is in converted Imperial or American units. So pop cans are 355 mL = 12 oz.fl.US, canned tomatoes often come in 796 mL cans (= 28 oz.fl.Imp.), butter comes in 454 g bricks, etc. etc. Frustrating as hell.

Of course, the primary reason behind all this is that most food manufacturing plants are using equipment that was designed (or even built!) (a) in America or Britain (b) before 1970 or so. So everything was built for American or Imperial units. And inertia means we still have 450 or 454 mL jars of jam instead of 500 mL jars. Sigh.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd heard somewhere that if you ask for "ein Pfund" worth of something in Germany, they gave you 500 g as a matter of course.

Yup, that's true. In Germany, "ein Pfund" is understood to be a kind of "metric pound" of 500 g exactly, at least when buying food.

The only thing I can think of that's sold in fake-Imperial measurements is jam, and I wouldn't refer to those as "ein Pfund".

Canned soft drinks are usually 330 ml here, FWIW -- presumably an approximation to 1/3 L with a reasonably round number. (Bottles tend to be 1 L or sometimes 2L for soft drinks, 750 mL/1L/1.5 L for bottled water. I've also seen 1/2 L bottles for soft drinks.)