FALLING-OFF IN QUALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 138, 14 June 1938, Page 8

FALLING-OFF IN QUALITY.

WELMNGTON COMPLAINT. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday. Chving to a glut of inferior Island oranges on tlie market, some 7500 cases of liigh-quality fruit landed at Wellington last week by tlie Wsinganslla are being witliheld from sale by the Internal Marketing Department, according to fruit merchants interviewed to-day. They said that meanwhile further supplies of Earotongan oranges were being brought from Auckland and "were being foisted on to Wellington consumers in an effort to dispose of them.

The Island oranges were part of a consignment brought .down from Rarotonga by the Matua on her last trip. Fruiterers described them as watery and liable to go bad quickly. In many cases numbers had to be rejected as had the evening following their purchase. They should never have been shipped. Because the Wellington portion of the consignment had been disposed of while the Auckland market was still overstocked, further supplies were being brought to Wellington.

Meanwhile 7500 cases of good New South Wales oranges had been landed and .were being held, some on the wharves and some in city warehouses, until the low-grade island supply was disposed of. Some 3000 cases of Mangaian oranges were to be placed on the market before the Australian ones were released. In the meantime shopkeepers were faced with a loss on the fruit, which would not keep and which they could not sell. Until the public had accepted the whole of the Rarotongan and Mangaian fruit tliey were unlikely to be able to obtain any good quality oranges.

It was stated that since the institution of the present system of fruit control there had been a definite falling-off in the quality of the Island fruit placed on the market. There appeared to be a greater quantity and lower quality of fruit landed from that source.