I’ve noticed that bags of peanuts tend to come in 1 5/8 ounce package size. Why do they come in this quantity, instead of 1.5 or 2 ounces? I don’t think it’s because they’re measuring in a round number of grams, since it comes out to 46 grams. Is it just one of those things without a good explanation, or is there some historical reason for the odd quantity?
They don’t…? Not that I can tell. If we’re talking airline peanuts, they seem to be usually 1 oz or .5 oz. Those seem to be pretty standard for single servings.
I just went to my work’s break room to look at nut snack bags (which can be peanuts, almonds, or mixed nuts) and they are either 1 oz, 1.5 oz, 1.75 oz, or 2 oz.
I’m not convinced this phenomenon you’re asking about exists.
I would guess that it’s just a progression down from 1.75 or 2oz in an attempt to keep the price the same. If you watch them, they’ll probably be 1.5oz in the next year or two. Look at bottles of beer next time your in the liquor store, you might be surprised at how many “12oz” bottles are actually 11.2 or 11.8oz.
I don’t eat peanuts, but all I had to do was google 1 5/8 oz peanuts (or 1.625) and got some examples.
The progression of most food products is fractionally smaller packaging to keep them at the same price point, especially against competing products.
I first read this as “nut sack bags” and was going to compliment you, sort of, on that. Or maybe nitpick the redundancy, come to think of it.
So close.
I will try harder next time. 
I wasn’t disputing the fact that 1 5/8 oz bags of peanuts exist.
I was and still dispute the initial assertion that they “tend to come in that size”. Googling bags of peanuts shows that they tend to be sold in logical divisions of an ounce (.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.). And I wanted to physically check how they were sold near me and it was consistent with what I saw online.
If the original question was “Why do they ever come in that size?” that would be one thing. But to ask “Why do they usually come in that size?” requires confirmation that they actually do before a factual answer can be given. I don’t see that they do.
There’s also the relative density of different snacks in a line; for vending in particular and for shelf presence as a secondary issue, manufacturers like to keep their bags about the same physical size. Thus a denser product will be packaged in a smaller net quantity than a fluffier one. There’s no reason at all for them to round these amounts off to standard points (half ounce, ounce) when they have a different goal overall than equal weights.
Another question is whether we’re talking about shelled or unshelled peanuts. I was checking out shelled peanuts. (In my experience, because they’re so bulky the peanuts in a shell are usually sold in larger bags, the really small bags are usually without shells.
This.
Look at all half-gallon containers. The physical size of the container remains the same, the price probably hasn’t changed in a while, but the 64 oz container only contains 59 oz now. Except for dairy products which are regulated.
5 and 8 are both pretty big numbers, and together they add up to more than 10 so maybe the package designer thought that 5/8 would look like more peanut than .6 peanuts .
Coffee in cans used to be 1, 2, 3 pounds. Now the weights are significantly less and not always the same from brand to brand.
And of course, candy bars have been on a diet for decades. Chocolate bars have remained the same face size while getting thinner and thinner.
The peanuts in question are shelled. The larger size is 3 ounces. They are chili lime flavored peanuts from Mexico, and purchased at a convenience store specializing in Mexican products.
Ah. Part of this might be metric to English conversion. Products packaged at even gram weights would sometimes come up to be odd ounce sizes.
1-5/8 ounces is 45-46 grams; 50 grams (a reasonable “standard” size) is 1.75 ounces. Allowing for weight regulations etc., it might be sold as a 50g pack in Mexico. Easier to change the printing than the physical characteristics of packaging…
On a related note, I always marveled at the value of 98.6 degrees F for a standard body temperature. They really have the “normal” temp down to a tenth of a degree? Until the fateful day when I was fooling around with conversion formulas and realized that was 37 degrees C, a much less precise value.
Perhaps that particular size allows the company to comfortably fill it with just enough peanuts that results in an even-numbered calorie count, and even better, a LOW calorie count(to assuage many people’s incessant label reading?)
NPR did a story on Candy packaging comparing a popular chocolate-covered-in-a-hard-candy-shell package weight to the same candy with peanuts. The peanuts version weighed less than the plain version. The story reported that the peanuts version weighed less due to the increase in calories from the peanuts and the standard limit for a single serving was 240 calories, so the weight was reduced to hit the calorie target.
Google says 1 5/8 ounces of peanuts is 190 calories, so 2 ounces would be 233, below the 240 mark.
So amount of calories is not one reason for why 1 5/8 ounces is common. (or not common as Atamasama suggests).
Fahrenheit started with 100 as normal body temperature. His scale was in increasingly wide use before the modal value of 98.6 was [del]discovered[/del] confirmed.
Sort of a “Jesus was born five years before Jesus” thing.