Blame the European regulators who decided that it was no longer necessary to have standard pack sizes.

Pack sizes were regulated in 1975 for volume measures (wine, beer, spirits, vinegar, oils, milk, water, and fruit juice) and in 1980 for weights (butter, cheese, salt, sugar, cereals [flour, pasta, rice, prepared cereals], dried fruits and vegetables, coffee, and a number of other things). In 2007, all of that was repealed - and member states were now forbidden from regulating pack sizes!

I think the rationale was that now the unit price (price per unit of measurement) was mandatory to display, consumers would still know which of two different packs on the same shelf was better value. But standard pack sizes don't just provide value-for-money comparisons, as this article shows.

> but then we'd need to measure

Most butter here (and in a number of other countries) have measuring lines on the pack itself in 50g increments, so while I agree with you it's a nuisance to have an open one to deal with, the measurement part is usually a matter of using a knife along the marked line...

If the "certain brands" you refer to don't have those measuring lines, though, then a pox on them...

Another dimension we have in France: most butter in 82% fat, but if are not careful you might buy so-called butter with much lower fat. Awful taste on morning toasts, ruined pastries.

The 250 g half-bricks are very common. It's how the foo-foo frilly butter is sold ("cultured" butter, imported French butter with 94% fat content, butter made exclusively from milk squeezed from grass-fed cows, etc) because no one is willing to pay $15.00 for a pound of butter but they'll pay $8.00 for a half pound.

Some American butter is wrapped in wax paper as regular sticks with measurement markers on it so that it is easy to measure. Plenty of large bricks though.

I’ve seen them in stores in Canada, but they’re usually more expensive than the 454g blocks. Expensive enough that it’s usually better to buy the block and portion it as needed.

  I only recently found out that in some places in the US,
  they cut them in fours

Typical Americana. Cutting up and packaging in extra foil what could simply be sold as a larger brick.

See also, milk bags.

Midwest, East Coast, and South I've seen some 1/2lb or 1lb blocks for fancier butters sometimes. But a pat of butter was definitely 1/4-1/2 tbsp of butter in the midwest - depending on if for toast (less) or for baking (exactly 1/2).

I've not heard "pat" used as a serious unit of volume since childhood though. In fact I rarely hear the word pat in relation to butter at all anymore.

In Italy this is a fairly common expression.

I've typically (only?) seen it on savory recipes though. For cakes and cookies you'd have quantities in grams.

The 125 g package tends to be exclusive for more expensive brands though, or special stuff like salted butter. 250 g is the basic European packaging unit of butter, with the occasional 500 g for margarine.

So what you're saying is that it's probably 8 pounds, right?

wow haha, nice finds! that's awesome.

Thanks for the explanation. Hershey's taste was really a disappointment on my first visit to the US. As a dark chocolate eater I still can't understand how this called chocolate.

Britisher here. I was disgusted to discover this when a colleague brought some from the US. I don't understand how anyone eats / ate this stuff.

Note that UK measuring cups are not exactly the same size as US measuring cups, just as US and UK gallons are not the same size. Yes, this is infuriating. Fortunately you can buy US ones over the internet, or convert it into metric like a normal person.

"Cups" are also usually labelled on measuring jugs too. I'd refuse on principle to buy a specific measuring cup.

> It _is_ a volume measurement

Yawn.

Except there's no such thing as a "volume measurement":

   - The so-called "cups" will have different manufacturing processes, some will be a bit smaller, some will be bit larger.  Plastic cups will warp and deform with time.
   - When measuring dry materials like flour, the amount in your "cup" depends on your usage.  Are you weighing sifted flour or flour out of the bag ?  Are you accidentally/deliberately compressing the dry goods when using your cup ? (e.g. are you scooping straight from the bag of flour).
   - etc. etc. etc.

Keep in mind it goes further than that. US customary volume units don't match up with British ones.

One British gallon is about 4.5 liters, where a US gallon is about 3.8. Quarts, pints, and cups follow, but fluid ounces are another thing. A US gallon is divided into 128 fl. oz., while a British gallon is 160. This results in a US fluid ounce of about 29.6 ml, vs. 28.4 ml for the British one, and also affects teaspoons and tablespoons.

> No need for scare quotes, US customary units are a thing.

I understand that other countries (probably North American ones) use the same system too, so thought I was clarifying, not scaring.

> A US customary cup is, at least, quite standard at 8 fluid ounces. This is more standardized than the unit of measure used in British recipes and whatnot

I disagree as British (or non-U.S.) recipes will use a combination of metric and/or imperial sizes depending on their age. Weighing something in grammes is easy and standardised (for most of the Earth's surface at least). Admittedly, imperial measurements can be problematic as a British pint is different to a U.S. pint and "fluid ounces" also have different definitions.

> 240 mL of apricots is just as useless as 1 cup of apricots

I agree - any sane recipe will use something like "5 apricots". I've never seen mL used for measuring whole fruit - grammes would be appropriate for mashed fruit though.

> This is more standardised than the unit of measure used in British recipes and whatnot.

How so?