• dan@upvote.au
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    I love that both are listed.

    You do sometimes see nice round metric numbers, for example soft drinks (soda / pop) often come in 2 litre bottles.

    I’m still unsure as to why soft drink bottles are measured in litres while milk is measured in gallons… A carton of milk (half a gallon, 1.9L) is almost as large as a bottle of soft drink (2L) so it’s strange they haven’t converged.

    There’s also things like the TSA liquids limit, which is defined as exactly 100mL but commonly written as 3.4 fl oz.

    • ricecake
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Milk has been sold in gallons longer than pop has existed is my only guess for why milk hasn’t switched.

      The US government has been very on board with metric, for example the US was one of the original signatories of the metric convention. It’s just not simple to mandate that people stop using traditional units and instead use the official standard units.

      Pepsi and coke both have significant international business, which makes standard bottles appealing.
      Additionally, in the mid seventies when the US was last making a push towards making the private sector switch Pepsi as a marketing gimmick switched to a bottle that was bigger than a typical coke bottle and also metric.
      https://youtu.be/L6O4UeowF5I?si=fncOmRnbigWOrAsR

      They hoped to be ahead of the curve in the US, better value than coke, and use one bottle everywhere.

      • dan@upvote.au
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        which makes standard bottles appealing.

        I was thinking about this, but if it’s the case, why are cans different? US cans are 12 fl oz (355mL), Australian and New Zealand cans are 375mL, European and Middle Eastern cans are often 330mL.

        • ricecake
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          There’s sadly no interesting answer. They just didn’t try the marketing gimmick with cans.