Recently removed the word "pint" from its soup cartons. Now only refers to "568g". Letter of complaint dispatched by BWMA December 2000; however, no reply.

I wrote to them too. I had a reply, which was to do with it being more modern and accurate to fill the cartons by weight. I wrote back:

"Some time ago I wrote to you congratulating you both on the quality of your soups, and on your policy of showing the quantities in your cartons in an easily-understandable way, with both imperial volumes (preferred by 74% of the public, according to research published in The Guardian) and metric ones (preferred by the rest).
Since then, however, a very strange thing has happened. From showing the amount in your cartons in a way that everyone understands, you have switched to showing it in a way no-one understands.
You have taken off all reference to any liquid quantities, whether metric or imperial, and now you show the amount by weight, in grammes, as if your soups were a slab of cheese or something. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who thinks of liquids in that way. If you show any normal human being a cup of soup and ask how much is in it, the answer you’ll get will be ‘about half a pint’ or, occasionally, ‘about a quarter of a litre.’ The idea that you might buy fifty grammes of soup (or whatever) is utterly meaningless. In fact, I think you sort of realise this a bit yourselves: I notice in my local Covent Garden Soup Co restaurant, you sell cups of hot soup by liquid volume (7oz, 12oz and 16oz, if I remember rightly).
I did ring up your customer comment line to mention this, and someone rang me back with an explanation about selling by weight being more ‘modern’, and also saying that it made things easier in the factory, since you buy most of your ingredients by weight. Which didn’t sound massively convincing to me: for one thing, however you measure things in your factory, you still have to pour the soup in a carton with a fixed and definite volume, don’t you? And for another, you can make your internal processes run smoother without making things more difficult for consumers.
Did someone make you do it? Are there new regulations or something? It’s such a bizarre thing to do from a customer point of view that I can’t imagine that you would have done it out of choice.
And are you free to change things back? It would be very nice indeed if you did – but don’t just take my word for it: I suggest a quick bit of market research; maybe a couple of questions on an omnibus survey or a couple of focus groups with your customers, offering three choices: the existing way (by weight), the minimum metric way (by ml volume) and – my favourite - your previous way (imperial and metric).
The answer you will get, I am sure, is that the overwhelming majority of customers, like me, prefer measures by the sort of familiar UK volumes (pint cartons, two-pint cartons) that you buy other liquids like milk in, with the addition of the metric ml equivalents to satisfy legal requirements...

They replied to my letter with more stuff about diferent soups having different densities, and having to open cartons on the production line and pour the contents into special measuring flasks to ensure accuracy of fill, and this causing wastage; whereas they can just weigh the thing on scales if they do it by weight; and everyone else apart from Sainsbury's now did it that way too.

All of which begs the question of how they managed so well up until now selling soups by volume. Unless the packaging regulations have changed, I can't see why it was perfectly OK to pour out a pint before but not now.

Since it has been two months since BWMA wrote to this company, a further letter will be written, asking why soup, a liquid product, is not described in liquid measure.

It will also be asked whether 568g equals 568ml (ie one pint). If not, what is the new liquid quantity.

Thirdly, given that consumer opinion polls show most people think in pints rather than millilitres, it will be again asked why the pint equivalent is no longer being used.

There is nothing a company takes less seriously then when someone writes to complain about measuring units. They expect to receive these types of letters from people who don't give one hoot about their products but will write to complain about the units used.

Most companies by now realize that there is an organized group that does nothing but check labels for measurement units and sends off letters of complaint if they see metric units. Word travels between companies to watch out for letters of this sort. At first they may be answered, but with a response similar to: "We know what is best for our business...". After it becomes apparent that the person(s) writing them are just trying to be a royal pain, future letters are promptly thrown in the trash or the emails deleted.