1709 - Consumer Protection

Consumer Protection

Parliament enacts legislation giving British bakers two distinct systems of selling bread; they may continue as they have since 1266 to sell it by weight, with the weight based on the prevailing price of flour (Assize Bread), or they may bake it to standard weights with prices geared to weight (Priced Bread), but they must choose one system or the other and may not change once they have chosen. The quartern, or quarter-peck loaf, weighing four pounds 5½ oz. is the most commonly baked size (it is officially reckoned to be the yield from a quarter-peck, or three-and-a-half pounds, of flour). Bakers also produce peck loaves that weigh 17 pounds six ounces and half-peck loaves weighing eight pounds 11 ounces. A 280-pound sack of low-protein flour is expected to yield 347 pounds of bread.