That’s, what, 7% less…

  • DonPiano
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    1 year ago

    Motherfuckers moving digits around hoping nobody will notice.

    440 -> 400? Nah, too obvious.

    440 -> 404? Greasy, let’s do that!

    • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      That’s one of the skudgiest size reductions I have ever seen. It’s also not organic. I would pick something else if anyone did that to me.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That 440 down to 404 was deliberate as well. Meant to trick the eye at a glance.

    I know this is a nearly impossible task, but is anyone regularly tracking and documenting the shrinkflation in products?

  • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That probably means that a ton of things are switching to 404ml cans, because I don’t think those are usually custom made for a single beverage.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      That is such a ridiculous number, though. As if someone specifically looked for a number where you might miss that it’s different from 440 ml.

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Maybe they should look into making this kind of deception illegal…

          This would get obliterated in court, here in Germany, and yeah, I’m glad of it. I understand that these companies are profit-driven, but using literal scam tactics is simply eroding consumer trust. These companies should want this to be generally prohibited, so they don’t have to participate in scams in order to stay competitive.

      • admiralteal@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s a pub pint.
        There are a lot of beer can sizes.

        Imperial, the common ones are

        • 24oz (usually only VERY cheap beer)
        • 19.2 oz “imperial” pints (often called stovepipes/smokestacks)
        • 16oz pints (usually called tallboys, though larger sizes are ALSO often called tallboys)
        • 12oz “classic”/standard cans
        • and nips (8.4oz) which I don’t know the reason they’re the size they are.

        However, in bar tradition, a “pub” pint is a typical size, which is what this can is – about 14oz. These happen a lot since they’re served in a shaker pint glass that LOOKS like a typical pint glass but has an extra thick bottom that makes those 2oz disappear. The commonness of this style of glass is why so much EU glassware has the mandatory 40cl line.

        Metric cans come in a lot more sizes, but as I understand it the standard ones are 330ml, 440ml, and those same 568ml (19.2oz) stovepipes.

        The point is, this ridiculous number is a pub pint. Why that can size exists I do not know.

        • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Does any of that explain the 404? An even 400ml is very close to 14 imperial ounces. 14.078. 404 makes it further off and a weird number in any units I’ve tried coverting it to.

          • admiralteal@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Nope. The 4ml diff from 400 is within a margin of error I’m sure, so this size really seems arbitrary to me. Wolfram’s language model doesn’t recognize it as some obscure unit either.

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Excuse the dumb question, but what kind of ounce are we talking about?

          There’s apparently an “imperial fluid ounce”, which is 28.4130625 mL.
          There’s a “US customary fluid ounce”, which is 29.5735295625 mL and certainly sounds like it might be customary in the US.
          But then there’s also the “US food labeling fluid ounce”, which is exactly 30 mL, and I guess, would be even more customary in US food labeling, but if it’s an even mL number, then I’m confused how we end up with such a crooked number as 404.

          Or is it just that there’s some regulation which says a pub-pint-sized can must be 14 oz, but for some reason, you’re allowed to be half an ounce below that (404 / 30 mL = 13.466)…?

          Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_ounce

          • admiralteal@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            It’s not a dumb question, but you’re presuming standards and exactness that do not exist in practice.

            A pub pint is a pint glass that is deceptively smaller than a full pint, usually about 14oz. That’s all it is. This can is the same as a pub pint – both in spirit and practice – as far as I can tell.

            • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, I am German, so we definitely take measuring (and beer) a bit too serious.

              When I was younger, I learned that there was a tolerated margin of error, something like the package may say 200 mL, but it actually only contains 195 mL at times.
              This absolutely makes sense in retrospect, but at the time, I was genuinely surprised that this was not something we measured at mL precision. They need to provide that whole ingredients list and nutrition table, so just measuring how much is in the package felt like the easy part.

        • Sprucie@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Not directly relevant to your post I thought your post was culturally interesting. I live in the UK, and a pub pint will ALWAYS be what you listed as imperial pints. I believe it is illegal to call it a pint and it not be that size. I’m surprised how small the American pub pints are in comparison.

          • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Illegal in Canada too - if it’s not 20 +/- 0.5 oz, you can’t call it a pint.

            Can’t say I see the word ‘pint’ at pubs very often anymore, though.

            • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Certainly people must ask for “pints” though and if the server brings them a drink, I would take that as confirmation that they are tacitly serving pints.

        • GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          And the silly thing is, a pub pint should be 568ml. A pub in the UK selling less than a full pint wouldn’t be a pub very long.

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            That’s because the UK uses imperial pints, a US pint is only 473 ml, and the “shaker pint” is only 414.

            To make it even more fun there are US barr associations trying to claim that a pint is just a glass of beer not of any specific size, so they can use the word with a smaller glass. Fortunately most government weights and measures agencies are not exactly convinced that a pints means something different than the standard measure.

    • Enk1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Where is this at? I’ve never seen 440ml or 440ml cans in North America. Canned drinks/beers usually come in 355ml (12 US ounces), 473ml (16oz), 500ml (16.9 oz), or 19.2 US ounces (20 British ounces aka British pint). Other less common sizes are 8oz (236ml / Red Bull) and big beer formats like 24oz and 32oz (just shy of a litre).

      404ml is around 13.66 US ounces or 14.2 imperial ounces. 440ml is around 14.7 US ounces or 15.5 imperial ounces.

      Usually when you get a measurement that’s not a nice round number like 500 or 750 it means it was probably converted from some other measurement standard. But both measurements seem completely arbitrary for what I assume is an English speaking country.

      I looked through some antique measurements but didn’t find anything useful. It seems to be more than half a chungah, but far less than a butt.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Or it’s the same can, with just 404ml inside.

      Edit: looking closer, not the same can. But that’ll probably happen….:/

  • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, the Guinness pint is now 14.9 fucking ounces in the US. Relatives of mine in Ireland confirmed that if they did that shit there, they’d have another rebellion.

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If I’m not mistaken, the guinness can is the same size as other US pint (16 oz) cans, but there is less beer volume because of the widget.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        1 year ago

        As someone that’s not a beer drinker… What is a widget?

        • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s a plastic ball with a tiny hole in it. When you open the beer, the compressed gas, nitrogen and co2, sprays out of that hole into the beer, making it creamy and frothy. Guinness isn’t meant to be carbonated like most beer, so it’s never “foamy”

      • n3m37h@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Draft Guineas is poured with a restrictor plate to give you that thick dense head. The widget in the can is to replicate that

  • ToxicWaste@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    What is 440ml to begin with? A propper beer in a can is 500ml, a propper beer in a bottle is 330ml or 500ml. Everything else is a scam.

    • aulin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A lot of imported beers come in 440 ml cans. US ones in particular. But I agree that it feels scammy, because we expect them to be 500 ml.

        • aulin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Someone said in another comment that 440 ml is the default multipack can for the UK and that can plus contents add up to 1 lb that way. I don’t know if this is true. I could see US beer imported via UK being a thing though.

          Edit: And if you mean whether I would expect 470 ml over 500 ml, then no. 500 ml is very much the European standard can.

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I specifically meant imports, as they tend to use the same shelving and cooler infrastructure for the cans we have. But I don’t seek out a lot of imports myself.

      • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        US measures in ounces, we have three standard beer sizes: 12oz, 24oz and the infamous 40oz. Bars will sell 16oz draught beer, no one is really sure where that came from and not all bars sell them.