Here we go again - welcome to the country of fatuous regs

[Digit]

Of course the world hasn't gone mad Jake.
Just some of the regulators and enforcers.
Take last week, trader in trouble for offering Kiwi fruits one mill undersize, to 'protect the consumer' they must be destroyed. '100 pounds please' for the service.
Give them away? Good Lord no, we can't allow that.
Fast forward a week, 'each family in the UK throws food away to value of 8 pounds per week, this must be stopped!'
Fast forward a few more days, private jet to attend a 'save the planet from carbon emissions meeting', including and 8 course meal.
Very pragmatic that.

Roy.

 

[Finial]

Take last week, trader in trouble for offering Kiwi fruits one mill undersize, to 'protect the consumer' they must be destroyed. '100 pounds please' for the service.
Give them away? Good Lord no, we can't allow that.

Digit can you give your source for this?

 

[Digit]

Which?

Roy.

 

[Finial]

where did you hear about the kiwi fruit? I'd like to know the regulation that specifies the size of fruit and that it can't even be given away if it is too small.

 

[Digit]

I buy several newspapers Finial and it was, I believe, the Sun, complete with pictures as well. Somebody else must have seen it.

http://www.openmarket.org/2008/06/28/th ... kiwifruit/

Try this.

Roy.

 

[Jake]

It stems from a UN trade regulation (see UN ECE) which has to be implemented by members of the OECD. The EU is leading a movement to relax those standards for agricultural produce. The aim of the regs is obviously to make trade possible by making sure that if X in England buys Class II Kiwis from Y in NZ, he can sell them on to Z in France and everyone along the way knows what they are getting.

The newspaper articles say the trader in question 'pulped' them. It isn't clear, but he clearly made more profit from whatever he did than from simply returning them to the importer and getting a refund - as the RPA offered him assistance to do that. At a guess, he pulped them for juice, and the newspapers are using language too carefully for most of their readers!

 

[Digit]

But why the hell should he not be able to give them away?

Roy.

 

[RogerS]

But why the hell should he not be able to give them away?

Roy.

It is against EU Directive 2006/12.3/334/toss/12.3/ers 'Legislation against the use of common sense'

 

[Digit]

:lol: :lol:

Roy.

 

[Jake]

Dunno - most of the reports don't say that, apart from the Sun (who chose to paint him as a poor ickle market stall, rather than a wholesale market trader, and it's a direct quote in the other report I saw which said that - so maybe it's true, maybe it's just made up.

 

[Rich]

For the sake of common sense, why can't we all just leave it to "caveat emptor?"

Rich.

 

[Digit]

'Cos regulators must regulate, it makes them feel important.
I worked part as a part time security officer at one time and the effect on some people of giving them a uniform was astonishing
The most hen pecked little twit would become a little Hitler in one esay step.

Roy.

 

[Rich]

OK Roy but there are 3 points here I'd like to make,
1, If someone has got time to go around measuring kiwi fruit, then they have too much time on their hands.
2, Which jobsworth GAVE the above the instruction to do the exercise?
3, why are we, as taxpayers, in these very trying times subsidising this useless exercise.
further, if anyone can convince me otherwise then they should be in charge of the nannies in brussels, and they can be part of the great gravy train too!!!.

Rich.

PS, and this is after Gordon has told us NOT to waste food! :?

 

[Digit]

I'd like to know if they examined everyone?
I also wonder if there is any law, regulation, prohibition or guide line that is too stupid, too out of date, too irrelevant that nobody will enforce it?

Roy.

 

[dennis]

Roy

If reading the sun,star etc I always check a callender because I wouldnt even believe the date on them,they are really no more than comics but do have a certain entertainment value.

Dennis

 

[Digit]

Complete with pictures of the gentleman involved?
Recorded elswhere as well according to the Net.
I buy one left wing and one right wing newspaper per day.
This one do you?

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayN ... K=20959548

Roy.

 

[Finial]

Thanks for the reference Digit. About all I know about kiwis is that you need a sharp chisel to peel them, but I am interested in rants about unreasonable regulations as in my experience they are often unfounded. There is normally a good reason for a regulation even if you may not like it. For example there are reasons for speed limits even if not everyone wants them. There are a lot of reports about this incident and I thought it was probably misrepresented. So I contacted the Rural Payments Agency for their point of view. They do not dispute the story, it is basically true, even the rule against giving the stuff away. They say the reason for the regulation is to protect the consumer, but there is nothing on their website to justify it.

I can see that it might be useful to have agreed quality standards for putting stuff on the market. Although probably most people would be happy to make up their own minds whether or not to buy, if there was no standard there might be even more poor quality goods in the shops. I know that when I buy fruit I often find it damaged or unripe and it would make life a little easier if I didn’t have to pick through the tray in the supermarket looking for acceptable quality. I would quite like a regulation that stopped unripe plums being sold as if they were ready to eat. If I were a dealer buying sight unseen a defined standard would be important.

If there is a standard there is always going to be fruit that doesn’t meet it, so it is no surprise that the inspector said the kiwis are 4 grams too small. If the limit is 62 grams, a fruit weighing 58 fails. I assume that the limit was set after consultation to be the lower limit of what was then deemed OK for sale. So it is silly to complain that they were only a millimetre too small.

But why the size is deemed so important and why they cannot even be given away if undersize I don’t know. I'll let you have this one.

 

[Shultzy]

I think the size was never the issue.

Tim, of Clifton Wood, Bristol, said that 4g in weight was equal to about one millimetre in diameter.

It was always about the weight, the media just latched on the the 1 mm size as a way of over-hyping the story. Still don't understand what's wrong with small Kiwi's.

 

[Digit]

So why can't he sell by total weight, thereby ignoring size or individual weight and why can't he give them away?

Roy.