For Clubcard offers, you could only see the price per unit for the original price but not for the Clubcard price. Tesco has announced that unit pricing will also be shown for the Clubcard price as well. This will enable Clubcard holders to see that they are getting the best deal.
Will other supermarkets follow suit and show unit pricing for member-only offers (i.e. exclusive prices for loyalty card holders)? I welcome Tesco’s plan to show unit pricing for member-only offers. This is long overdue. If unit pricing must be shown for the original price, it should also be shown for the discounted price to enable shoppers to compare prices and get the best deal.
Last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigated unit pricing practices in the groceries sector. One of the problems that the CMA found was the omission of unit prices for discounted products. Which? has claimed that Tesco could be breaking the law due to unclear pricing. Which? published its article about Tesco pricing practices on its website in June 2023. It has taken Tesco over half a year to respond to Which?’s criticism about the lack of unit pricing on its Clubcard offers.
One important feature of unit pricing that ensures that shoppers can compare like with like is that it is based on the use of a single measurement system. This measurement system is the metric system. It would not work well if some unit prices used metric units and other unit prices used imperial units. It is a fundamental tool for shoppers to make quick and easy comparisons and get the best value for money. Unit pricing is especially helpful during the cost-of-living crisis.
Tesco’s announcement was reported in the Metro newspaper on 20 February 2024. You can read the full Metro article here.
Metric Views 
Sainsbury’s often uses unit pricing but I don’t know offhand whether it shows prices for both elite and non-elite customers. However, I hope Tescos doesn’t follow Sainsbury’s practice of pricing per 100 g for expensive things like meat and pricing per kg for cheap things like vegetables. It wouldn’t be so bad if Sainsbury’s wrote £1.50/hg for meat say and £1.50/kg for broccoli. But it doesn’t. It writes £1.50 per 100 g for the former, which of course breaks metric rules, apart from being potentially confusing.
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Metric Maven’s last essay and the sad state of affairs of his encounter with metric apathy especially from those one would expect to be supporters.
https://themetricmaven.com/metric-sabbatical/
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As an aside an American company has changed its packaging to showcase metric units instead of “Imperial”:
https://endurance.biz/2024/industry-news/stans-notubes-going-metric-with-new-look-tubeless-sealant-products/
Wouldn’t it be nice if all UK companies put metric units front and center (and maybe even exclusively metric) on all their packaging. Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.
As for the USA, it will take a minor miracle to get us to start converting seriously. However, I am an eternal optimist, so I still hold out hope for that miracle. :-)
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I have noted a number of very products, some very British brands, being sold in the UK with non-metric quantities shown prominently alongside the metric wuantity, one that comes immediately to mind (as there is one in my bathroom) is Imperial Leather bubble bath which is ‘16.9 Fl.Oz/500mL’ (exactly as shown on the bottle) but nowhere does it point out that the conversion is actually US fl oz and not the imperial version (17.6 fl oz)
Perhaps it should be re-branded ‘US Customary Leather’?
Joking aside, cosmetic products do often show both but usually state ‘US fl oz’ specifically, however there seems to be little or no consistency in the enforcement of rules for this sort of product labeling.
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I believe that the reason for this is that the product can have the same label in both the UK and the US and the makers cannot be charged with giving short measure when they give UK customers 17.6 floz when the label says 16.9 floz. If they did it the other way round and sold products showing 17.6 [Imperial] floz in the US, they would certainly be giving their customers short measure. On the bright side of things, 500 ml is a nice round number whereas neither 16.9 not 17.6 are.
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@Ezra
Is that product exempt from the US Fair Packaging and Labeling Act? As I understand it, the FPLA still requires dual units (metric and US Customary) markings. Manufacturers cannot choose to have metric-only labels if they are to be sold in the USA, and fall under the remit of the Act.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if all UK companies put metric units front and center (and maybe even exclusively metric) on all their packaging.“
I’d say about 99% of UK packaged goods are marked in metric-only. Some (e.g. Corn Flakes) have been metric-only since about 1980. The last holdouts are supermarket own-brand milk cartons, and some cosmetics and imported goods.
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@m
I looked on Stan’s Race Day web site and the new bottles show (for example) “1000 ML” in white text on black background above the US fluid ounces which appears in much smaller font using red text on black background (so much harder to read).
So, the product seems to be compliant with the US FPLA to show both kinds of units assuming the FPLA says nothing about how prominent the two kinds of units should be on the label or otherwise allows for the metric unit to be more prominent than the US Customary unit.
I guess I need to contact the company to explain that “1000 ML” is not right for a couple of reasons. Better that they just put “1 L” or “1 liter” and be done with it. The 500 mL bottle should show “500 mL” instead of “500 ML” as it does now.
Let’s see how the company responds to my feedback. I’ll let y’all know if I hear anything. :-)
From Ezra (aka punditgi)
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Stan’s product labelling is a welcome step forward – however – it is a pity that its tyre sizing further down the page is less consistent.
I presume that these are bicycle tyres. One type is given in imperial, and the other is given in a form of metric that is common but inaccurate. The very common “700” specification refers to a nominal value of overall size based on early legacy sizes. The rim size is less. The ISO size specification for bicycle tyres is similar as for car tyres, i.e. width first, then rim diameter, except rim diameter is shown in millimetres.. A common rim diameter is 622 mm. A tyre sized thus would be indicated 40 x 622. This represents an overall diameter of 702 mm – near enough to make no practicable difference. However, a slimmer tyre could be marked 32 x 622, representing an overall diameter of 686 mm, but still marked as 700 x 32C.
Sorry if this pours cold water on Stan’s new advertising. Let us hope that Stan makes sizes clearer soon.
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@metricmac
Many thanks for the additional info.
It does seem like tire sizes are a bit of a mess, just like quantities of crude oil (barrels) or cooling capacity of air conditioners (BTUs) or nautical miles and feet for aviation and shipping. Someday all economic areas will get on board with the SI, hopefully sooner rather than later.
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Bicycle tyres, that must rank as the worst inch vs metric ‘clarification’ fiasco the world has ever seen.
It was a long time ago, but I did not understand why they did not follow the car tyre format of width/ratio/diameter, at least make the tyre diameter match the wheel diameter!!
Instead we seem to have got a whole raft of meaningless figures mixing them altogether. I am sure anyone trying to get a tyre to fit a bike wheel will be painfully aware. How the diameters failed to match I never did work out. It was to do with rolling distance (outside tyre diameter) so racers could gear the bike easier, rather than wheel diameter that the umpteen million other cyclist would like to know.
Inverse logic at its best.
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@punditgi. One cubic metre is 1000 L, so 1000 ML is 10^6 cubic metres. According to Wikipedia, a typical Olympic-sized swimming pool has a volume of 2500 cubic metres. (Olympic-size swimming pool – Wikipedia). Thus 1000 ML is equivalent to 400 Olympic swimming pools!
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