Milking Inflation and Creeping Americanisation

When I was growing up, Canada was just making the switch from the Imperial to the Metric System. It was a bit of a struggle switching from pounds to kilograms, inches to centimetres, miles to kilometres and ounces to millilitres, but we made the shift. More or less. The shift was most noticeable in grocery stories and food products. No longer could you buy a gallon of milk, but rather you bought 4 litres of milk. It was something that I eventually took for granted, until yesterday.

I bought what I thought was a 500 ml container of milk at Superstore - you know, the little half litre carton that is perfect for whitening your coffee. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that half a litre was actually 473 ml. And that the 250 ml carton was actually 237 ml.

All of the smaller cartons were marked the same. 500 ml and 250 ml cartons were non-existent. Even though the price remained the same. What the heck?

I did a bit of research on the internet and discovered that a few other people had noticed this shift last year. But nary a news outlet had picked up on the story. What was going on? Why such a weird number?

A bit more research and I learned that a British pint is 568 ml and that a US pint is 473 ml. Ahhh... it all made sense now. We are slowly but surely being Americanized.

If ever you see the one litre carton magically turn into a 946 ml carton, you 'll know that the American quart has invaded our country. Oh... wait... it's too late. In some provinces, glass bottles of milk are 946 ml.

But was this just a Dairyland thing? Perhaps they were expanding into the US market and wanted to have use the product sizes with which Americans are familiar? So, I took a wander through the Island Farms website, a company that I thought was local to Vancouver Island. Alas, no. Island Farms is owned by Natrel, with head offices in Quebec. They too have switched to 473 and 237 ml cartons.




Actually, if you take a look around at other food products, you will see the 473 ml and 946 ml sizes everywhere.

V8 Splash Berry Blend - 473 ml.

Coffee Mate - 473 ml.

Almond milk in the tetrapaks - 946 ml.
 

Elmer's Glue (really?) - 473 ml

Rickard's Beer... not the regular cans, but the big ones - 473 ml.

Sunrype apple juice still has 1 litre tetrapaks... but their 4 gallon jug is 3.78 litres.


Which makes me wonder... is this a step backwards for Canadian independence? Or a step forward for Canadian marketing? Or both? Is one better than the other?