“Media Statement: No Change in Metrication Law

13 September 2007

The Trading Standards Institute (TSI) has today clarified the current legal position relating to the sale of produce by metric measure.

Ron Gainsford, chief executive of TSI, said: ‘There is a great deal of confusion around the recent statement from the European Commission in connection with the legal use of metric measures.

‘The legal position has not changed - pre-packed goods and goods sold loose from bulk, such as fruit and vegetables, are still required to be sold in metric quantities and weighing scales must be calibrated in metric units of measurement. Suggestions that goods can now be sold in pounds and ounces are incorrect.

‘The only change - which has come about as a result of the EU ruling - is that goods can continue to be labelled with both metric and imperial quantities and with dual price per weight indications, indefinitely. Prior to this recent ruling, dual marking was due to end in 2009.

‘Of course a shopper can ask for a pound of apples or half a pound of mince meat, but the retailer must weigh in metric and sell the metric equivalent.

‘Countable products, for example apples and pears, do not have to be sold by weight, but if a trader chooses to sell by weight it has to be a metric measure.
‘So far as the pint is concerned, again there is no practical change. The UK had a time-limited exemption to use the pint for sales of beer, cider and milk but this exemption will now continue indefinitely.

‘Retailers can, as always, seek guidance from their local authority trading standards service who are responsible for enforcing the law on weights and measures.

‘Consumers can get advice from Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.’

For more information contact TSI Press Office on 0845 608 9430 “

We really need the DTI to make it clear what the rules are and what will and won’t be changing in the future… and we as consumers need to put pressure on our local Trading Standards offices to clamp down on this before it becomes too commonplace!

If you look at the options of either undoing the metrication so far, or completing the metrication programme, I think that there would be a clear and obvious route. The current mess of two systems needs to be discounted first, before that choice becomes clear.

While Commissioner Verheugen may consider imperial measurements a delightfully quaint jolly jape to encounter when on holiday for a few weeks, he obviously doesn’t realise the confusion that they cause when they continue to butt in to a mostly-metric measurement system every single day, all year round.

However, now that the EU angle is out of the way and the Europhobes must find something else to hate about their neighbours (the rest of us generally get on just fine together, by the way), maybe this means that the UK Government can now move forward and finish going metric properly without further irrelevant distractions.

It is clear from feedback on other media websites as regards this issue that the majority view is that we have wasted too much time already dragging this out, as shown by many parents’ concern that their children’s (and often their own) education is not able to be put to use. While most of us may love our beer, in whatever quantity it is served, we should certainly now finish the job for all other aspects of measurement.