The UK could be about to join an elite group. That is, the countries that use imperial units as their official or dominant system of weight, height, temperature and whatnot.
The intention is to bring “a bit of our national culture and heritage back onto the shop shelf”, Conservative MP Chris Philp told Sky News this morning. His colleague Mark Francois, meanwhile, raved on BBC TV about the “freedom of choice” Johnson’s plan would offer “a market trader or Sainsbury’s”.
Details so far are vague and subject to a government consultation, which is expected to “look at where it makes sense to incorporate or switch to imperial measurements such as feet and yards, and pints and gallons, with traders likely to be free to choose which they use” ITV reported.
Nevertheless, Brexiters are already giddy with the excitement about the prospect of the PM’s announcement – especially those convinced that bonkers Brussels busybodies banned bendy bananas being sold by the pound.
In reality, of course, an EU regulation that came into force in 2000 simply means use of metric units is a legal requirement for the sale by weight or measure of fresh produce. Pricing in pounds and ounces alongside is perfectly lawful (and so is selling bendy bananas), despite what so-called metric martyrs might insist.
For many other people, ‘demetricification’ of shopping missions makes little sense. It’s a “ludicrous suggestion” according to Green Party peer Jenny Jones. For Labour’s Angela Eagle, bringing back imperial units is “pathetic” and merely a bid to “weaponise nostalgia”.
Even some Tory MPs have spoken out against the move. Alicia Kearns and Tobias Ellwood, for instance, described it respectively as “a nonsense” and “far from the inspirational, visionary progressive thinking that we require”.
The UK’s leading grocers, however, have remained noticeably silent on the matter – presumably because they’ve got better things to do, such as preparing for a bumper bank holiday while also addressing supply shortages, a cost of living crisis, an obesity epidemic and demand for transparency on sustainability.
Even if they had nothing better to do, it’s very unlikely the mults would opt to update their shelf-edge labels and marketing material to imperial. That would be costly, time-consuming and, let’s face it, trivial.
Plus, the fact the UK is officially metric while everyday life already involves plenty of imperial units, from pints of milk to miles per hour, can be perplexing enough already for some people.
That’s almost certainly the case for young and, indeed, future shoppers. Not only are they raised on metric, they’re the people retailers and brands seem keenest to attract. Confusing them further with ounces, pounds, quarts and bushels would be practically self-sabotage.
[deleted]
Seems like Boris wants to be an American. Maybe he and I could trade places as I have an American high school education. I believe that makes me just as qualified as him😂
Good Lord… how about just doing the basics of government correctly instead of spending one minute longer discussing this rubbish?
I already find it infuriating that so many recipes online measure ingredients in imperial (cups of cheese… why?!)
It’ll allow shops to hide a good bout of shrink-flation by disorientating customers as to the £ per weight or volume cost of products while everyone doesn’t realise how metric converts to imperial
Clearly not written by a real grocer, or it’d be “Why on earth would grocer’s want to self-sabotage with a change to imperial measure’s?”
The butchers here will serve you in either metric or imperial anyway, this is just a media deflector so they stop asking him about partygate.
Most small grocers have been pushed out of business by tax-evading multinationals anyway, so at this point it’s really just flogging a dead horse. The few that remain tend to be bougey, gentrified specialists in the nice parts of cities, not the sort that pensioners can afford to frequent.
This whole Brexit bullshit is all about vanquishing people’s imaginary demons. Stuff could be priced and sold in imperial measurements anyway, people were just self-imprisoning themselves in an imaginary EU cage; Brexit gave them permission to temporarily overcome their own victim complex.
But we need a stream of new “victories” to sustain it, else those people will slip back into wallowing about other imaginary opressions that keep them down.
This is the sort of shit that we’re debating and in our news cycles instead of all the actual important shit we need sorted.
End me
Its an ideal way to sneak shrinkflation.
1kg becomes 2lb, lose 10% but nostalgia and fag packet maths means it goes unnoticed.
Surely most modern scales have options built in so can use metric and imperial. And to be honest, I don’t think anyone will be switching back entirely to imperial. It’s total nonsense.
…. You can now choose between eating a lbs/ounces of gruel or warming your house with a few BTU’s.
It’s a brexit bonus and a god given right to freeze/starve in imperial.
…… Because, cunts
I doubt any grocer is interested in this change. It seems entirely designed for the Daily Mail readership. Outside of that demographic I can’t imagine another group is even remotely interested in seeing this happen.
I suspect very few retail establishments will even bother doing anything at all about this and it will never go beyond being a Daily Mail headline for the most part.
There are actual import issues to invest time and money on. Why waste time and money on changing unit measurements. Utterly ridiculous.
“Why on earth would grocers want to self-sabotage with a change to imperial measures?”
Tory voters are addicted to self-sabotage, why not ask them?
Brexit was practically started by a few market stall holders in Sunderland who refused to sell goods in metric
This is a complete non-issue because all Imperial units will be defined by metric anyways lol
It’s never going to happen. It’ll go away again as soon as it has done its job of distracting people from the Sue Gray report.
I think it’s just a dead cat story tbh I’d be shocked if this actually happened
My canteen at work selling 12-16 oz coffees, I’m in my 20s and it just means nothing to me, it’s an inconvenience that I’m just not interested in so apart from my pints of milk I’ll be avoiding everything else that’s not in metrics
I refuse to believe this isn’t satire. Who in the blue fucking hell asked for this?
What’s wrong with asking for a quart of whale oil, a pound of tallow, or a furlong of flax thread? Should cost about 5 groats.
To confuse shoppers. If prices go up but units change, you’ll no longer be able to gauge how much/how expensive it’s become.
I’m 45. I know diddly squat about imperial weights or measurements apart from miles and pints. I’d literally have to start from scratch. No thanks.
Better bloody not, sod off boris with your ‘patriotic’ bullshit when he spends half his time committing treason against this country
It seems the only people who want Imperial Measures are Spivs, Chancers, Bigots, Idiots and the Terminally Nostalgic. Anybody who mentions this list – variations or subsets – gets to be told they are engaged in some Culture War nonsense or that they are some kind of weird fringe political extremist.
This issue is the perfect illustration of Britains political leadership. Continually looking backwards , no plans for the future.
I think it’s just a ‘dead cat’ to distract from the thrashing, raping, vomiting abomination of the current Conservative Party. There’s likely no real intent or fervour behind it. It’s an emperor’s costume change intermission.
Tory government really are a bunch of fools and halfwits
Far from reality the Brexit cultists believe metric was a control mechanism imposed on us by the evil EU whilst back in objective reality this really was not the case. The fact that using metric like the majority of the rest of the world makes sense for countless reasons is totally lost on the people Johnson feels he must appeal to. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum. Thankfully by making this optional only the looniest in the cult will shift their business to wholly imperial measures and will probably lose business as a result when no one under 80 understands what a bushel and so on is.
My brother in christ, they voted for Brexit. You don’t think they’d take a breathe before taking aim at their other foot?
I’m a carpenter, I use the metric system literally all day. I was born in 1990 so I know nothing of the imperial system. The thought of having to change the whole way I think for absolutely no reason honestly angers me.
34 comments
As this may be paywalled, here’s the article:
[thegrocer.co.uk](https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/the-grocer-blog-daily-bread/why-on-earth-would-grocers-want-to-self-sabotage-with-a-change-to-imperial-measures/667994.article)
#Why on earth would grocers want to self-sabotage with a change to imperial measures?
[*Daniel Selwood*](https://twitter.com/danielmcselwood)
___
The UK could be about to join an elite group. That is, the countries that use imperial units as their official or dominant system of weight, height, temperature and whatnot.
They are the US, Liberia and Myanmar, a trio that might become a quartet if Boris Johnson has his way. He’s expected on Friday to capitalise on [patriotic fervour amid the Platinum Jubilee](https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/new-product-development/how-food-and-drink-brands-are-celebrating-the-queens-platinum-jubilee-in-2022/666334.article) by announcing a return to dominance for pounds, ounces et al – with retail at the heart of the plan.
The intention is to bring “a bit of our national culture and heritage back onto the shop shelf”, Conservative MP Chris Philp told Sky News this morning. His colleague Mark Francois, meanwhile, raved on BBC TV about the “freedom of choice” Johnson’s plan would offer “a market trader or Sainsbury’s”.
Details so far are vague and subject to a government consultation, which is expected to “look at where it makes sense to incorporate or switch to imperial measurements such as feet and yards, and pints and gallons, with traders likely to be free to choose which they use” ITV reported.
Nevertheless, Brexiters are already giddy with the excitement about the prospect of the PM’s announcement – especially those convinced that bonkers Brussels busybodies banned bendy bananas being sold by the pound.
In reality, of course, an EU regulation that came into force in 2000 simply means use of metric units is a legal requirement for the sale by weight or measure of fresh produce. Pricing in pounds and ounces alongside is perfectly lawful (and so is selling bendy bananas), despite what so-called metric martyrs might insist.
For many other people, ‘demetricification’ of shopping missions makes little sense. It’s a “ludicrous suggestion” according to Green Party peer Jenny Jones. For Labour’s Angela Eagle, bringing back imperial units is “pathetic” and merely a bid to “weaponise nostalgia”.
Even some Tory MPs have spoken out against the move. Alicia Kearns and Tobias Ellwood, for instance, described it respectively as “a nonsense” and “far from the inspirational, visionary progressive thinking that we require”.
The UK’s leading grocers, however, have remained noticeably silent on the matter – presumably because they’ve got better things to do, such as preparing for a bumper bank holiday while also addressing supply shortages, a cost of living crisis, an obesity epidemic and demand for transparency on sustainability.
Even if they had nothing better to do, it’s very unlikely the mults would opt to update their shelf-edge labels and marketing material to imperial. That would be costly, time-consuming and, let’s face it, trivial.
Plus, the fact the UK is officially metric while everyday life already involves plenty of imperial units, from pints of milk to miles per hour, can be perplexing enough already for some people.
That’s almost certainly the case for young and, indeed, future shoppers. Not only are they raised on metric, they’re the people retailers and brands seem keenest to attract. Confusing them further with ounces, pounds, quarts and bushels would be practically self-sabotage.
[deleted]
Seems like Boris wants to be an American. Maybe he and I could trade places as I have an American high school education. I believe that makes me just as qualified as him😂
Good Lord… how about just doing the basics of government correctly instead of spending one minute longer discussing this rubbish?
He is out to [hijack the Queen’s Jubilee](https://i.redd.it/3o1bxwl9ei291.jpg) so he can promote [brand Boris](https://www.marketingsociety.com/think-piece/rise-brand-boris). Nothing else.
I already find it infuriating that so many recipes online measure ingredients in imperial (cups of cheese… why?!)
It’ll allow shops to hide a good bout of shrink-flation by disorientating customers as to the £ per weight or volume cost of products while everyone doesn’t realise how metric converts to imperial
Clearly not written by a real grocer, or it’d be “Why on earth would grocer’s want to self-sabotage with a change to imperial measure’s?”
The butchers here will serve you in either metric or imperial anyway, this is just a media deflector so they stop asking him about partygate.
Most small grocers have been pushed out of business by tax-evading multinationals anyway, so at this point it’s really just flogging a dead horse. The few that remain tend to be bougey, gentrified specialists in the nice parts of cities, not the sort that pensioners can afford to frequent.
This whole Brexit bullshit is all about vanquishing people’s imaginary demons. Stuff could be priced and sold in imperial measurements anyway, people were just self-imprisoning themselves in an imaginary EU cage; Brexit gave them permission to temporarily overcome their own victim complex.
But we need a stream of new “victories” to sustain it, else those people will slip back into wallowing about other imaginary opressions that keep them down.
This is the sort of shit that we’re debating and in our news cycles instead of all the actual important shit we need sorted.
End me
Its an ideal way to sneak shrinkflation.
1kg becomes 2lb, lose 10% but nostalgia and fag packet maths means it goes unnoticed.
Surely most modern scales have options built in so can use metric and imperial. And to be honest, I don’t think anyone will be switching back entirely to imperial. It’s total nonsense.
…. You can now choose between eating a lbs/ounces of gruel or warming your house with a few BTU’s.
It’s a brexit bonus and a god given right to freeze/starve in imperial.
…… Because, cunts
I doubt any grocer is interested in this change. It seems entirely designed for the Daily Mail readership. Outside of that demographic I can’t imagine another group is even remotely interested in seeing this happen.
I suspect very few retail establishments will even bother doing anything at all about this and it will never go beyond being a Daily Mail headline for the most part.
There are actual import issues to invest time and money on. Why waste time and money on changing unit measurements. Utterly ridiculous.
“Why on earth would grocers want to self-sabotage with a change to imperial measures?”
Tory voters are addicted to self-sabotage, why not ask them?
Brexit was practically started by a few market stall holders in Sunderland who refused to sell goods in metric
This is a complete non-issue because all Imperial units will be defined by metric anyways lol
It’s never going to happen. It’ll go away again as soon as it has done its job of distracting people from the Sue Gray report.
I think it’s just a dead cat story tbh I’d be shocked if this actually happened
My canteen at work selling 12-16 oz coffees, I’m in my 20s and it just means nothing to me, it’s an inconvenience that I’m just not interested in so apart from my pints of milk I’ll be avoiding everything else that’s not in metrics
I refuse to believe this isn’t satire. Who in the blue fucking hell asked for this?
What’s wrong with asking for a quart of whale oil, a pound of tallow, or a furlong of flax thread? Should cost about 5 groats.
To confuse shoppers. If prices go up but units change, you’ll no longer be able to gauge how much/how expensive it’s become.
I’m 45. I know diddly squat about imperial weights or measurements apart from miles and pints. I’d literally have to start from scratch. No thanks.
Better bloody not, sod off boris with your ‘patriotic’ bullshit when he spends half his time committing treason against this country
It seems the only people who want Imperial Measures are Spivs, Chancers, Bigots, Idiots and the Terminally Nostalgic. Anybody who mentions this list – variations or subsets – gets to be told they are engaged in some Culture War nonsense or that they are some kind of weird fringe political extremist.
This issue is the perfect illustration of Britains political leadership. Continually looking backwards , no plans for the future.
I think it’s just a ‘dead cat’ to distract from the thrashing, raping, vomiting abomination of the current Conservative Party. There’s likely no real intent or fervour behind it. It’s an emperor’s costume change intermission.
Tory government really are a bunch of fools and halfwits
Far from reality the Brexit cultists believe metric was a control mechanism imposed on us by the evil EU whilst back in objective reality this really was not the case. The fact that using metric like the majority of the rest of the world makes sense for countless reasons is totally lost on the people Johnson feels he must appeal to. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum. Thankfully by making this optional only the looniest in the cult will shift their business to wholly imperial measures and will probably lose business as a result when no one under 80 understands what a bushel and so on is.
My brother in christ, they voted for Brexit. You don’t think they’d take a breathe before taking aim at their other foot?
I’m a carpenter, I use the metric system literally all day. I was born in 1990 so I know nothing of the imperial system. The thought of having to change the whole way I think for absolutely no reason honestly angers me.