SAVING SURPLUS FRUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 196, 19 August 1940, Page 11

SAVING SURPLUS FRUIT.

"JAM FOR THE MILLION."

DEPOTS IN ENGLAND.

The firet of the thousand "Jam for the . Million" depots which are to save our surplus fruit has been opened in the old High Street in Lewes. This morning I found Miss Marjorie Walton, of the East Sussex Federation of Women's Institutes, Mrs. Margaret Tripp, fruit preservation expert, and housewives inaugurating the depot by topping and tailing a hundredweight of black currants, says a correspondent. By the end of the day they had canned, bottled or made into jam 1751b of prime morning-gathered fruit—red currants, ragpbe.rriee, strawberries and gooseberries, as well as black currants.

Every scrap of .it was surplus and would otherwise have rotted on the ground. It had come from gardens, allotments and fruit farms for miles around and was delivered by the growers, who received payment at today's wholesale market prices, the average being .3d a lb. They can buy it back at 7id a lb tin, jar or bottle, the extra 4}d being the cost of the sugar, container and cooking gas.

"The scheme is not confined to members of the Women's Institute and we are willing to buy surplus from everybody," Miss Walton said.

Lewes jam depot is lucky, because the County Council has lent it first-class preserving equipment, including a cansealing machine, three sterilisers and a pressure cooker for vegetables. The depot will work three days a week until the end of the season, preserving an average of 6001b weekly. It is expected that over 80001b of preserve will be made by October. A small fruitgrower who has not the petrol to take him to market told me it will save his farm.

Nearly 300 jam depots in agricultural districts remote from central markets will open next week and 'mobile units will operate in Scotland. Within ten days the number of depots will have reached 1000.

This means that some 10,000,0001b of preserve will be made available from fruit and vegetables which otherwise would have gone to waste.