At least here in Belgium, I do not remember there being consistent and uniform unit pricing before the directive was issued in 1998. From my point of view, the directive appears to have improved things so I would not characterize it as "a huge waste of time", quite the opposite.

Yes. And in the US, the units are still not uniform, so it means standing at each product for a few minutes with a calculator converting between units. It has wasted way more time than passing a law that requires the same units for each product.

Ask your grocery store to fix it or go to a different store in the area. In my area Kroger run stores have everything comparable, I would imagine their subsidiaries are equally as capable.