The estimated sign or estimated symbol,
, (officially, the ℮-mark or the final EC verification mark in EU law,
) can be found on most prepackaged products in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
(EU). Its use indicates that the prepackage fulfils
EU Directive
A directive is a legal act of the European Union that requires Member state of the European Union, member states to achieve particular goals without dictating how the member states achieve those goals. A directive's goals have to be made the go ...
76/211/EEC,
which specifies the maximum permitted
tolerances in package content.
The shape and dimensions of the e-mark are defined in EU Directive 2009/34/EC.
The e-mark is also used on prepackages in the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.
It must be placed in the same field of vision as the nominal weight or volume quantity, for example, "1mg℮" or "1L℮".
Functions
The estimated sign indicates that:
* the
average
In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...
quantity of product in a batch of prepackages shall not be less than the
nominal quantity stated on the label;
* the proportion of individual prepackages having a negative error greater than the tolerable negative error shall be sufficiently small for batches of prepackages to satisfy the requirements of the official reference test as specified in legislation;
* none of the prepackages marked have a negative error greater than twice the tolerable negative error (since no such prepackage may bear the sign).
The scope of the directive is limited to prepackages that have a predetermined nominal weight of between 5 g and 10 kg or volume of 5 ml and 10 L, are filled without the purchaser present, and in which the quantity cannot be altered without opening or destroying the packing material.
The sign looks like a stylised lowercase "
e" and its shape, , is precisely defined by the European Union Directive 2009/34/EC. It must be placed in the same field of vision as the nominal quantity. The sign has been added to the
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
list of characters as .
Tolerable negative error
Error tolerance decreases as nominal quantity increases, by alternating intervals of a given
''percentage'' error with intervals of a given ''amount'' error: these interpolate between the stepwise decreases in percentage error. The estimated sign indicates that the average quantity of product in a batch of prepackages is not less than the nominal quantity stated on the label.
The tolerable negative error is related to the nominal quantity and varies between 9 per cent on prepackages nominally 50g or 50ml or less, to 1.5 per cent on prepackages nominally 1 kilogram or 1 litre or more. The tolerable error decreases as nominal quantity increases, and is done by alternating intervals where there is a percentage error and intervals where there is a fixed error (and thus over those intervals the ''percentage'' error decreases).
:
See also
*
CE marking
The presence of the logo on Product (business), commercial products indicates that the Manufacturing, manufacturer or importer affirms the goods' conformity with European Environment, health and safety, health, safety, and environmental prote ...
(stylized )
*
EC identification and health marks
References
{{reflist
External links
Evertype articleCouncil Directive of 20 January 1976
on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making-up by weight or by volume of certain prepackaged products
Summary of EU Legislation
on Pre-packed products – how to fill and label the package
Symbols
EN standards