"PIONEER" CANNED FRUITS AND JAMS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13410, 30 April 1909, Page 8

"PIONEER" CANNED FRUITS AND JAMS.

One of the-' most striking tributes to local industry is to be teen in the window of Mr F. A. Cook, grocer, Colombo street. Tins is an exhibit of "Pioneer" canned r>ie> and desert fruits, jams, sauces, vinegar, and cordials, manufactured by the local firm of F. G. Parsonson and Son. The display is most artistically arranged, in the forefront being seen large glass jars, which enable the passer-by to see the excellent quality or the fruit that is canned , by the firm. Sauces, winch for onality are unequalled in New Zealand, are temptingly displayed in long glass tubes, and tho clearness of the cordials is a very marked feature. The firm exhibited at the recent International Exhibition,, and the certificate of merit gained by them at that fixture is also on view. In their attractive coloured labels the canned nnd bottled goods make a most excellent display, which should not bo missed by anyone who has the welfare of local industry at heart. A visit to the factory in Dallington, where those articles are prod*u«xl, is also well worth while, -md anyone who tlesires to do so is cordially invited to see the processes by which fruits of all kinds are canned or made into jam. The first building the visitor arrives at is a large storeroom aluirst every available inch of which is packed with tens of -thousands of tins of c(xnnF<l fruit, attesting the great popularity of the firm's products. Inside the factory itself is a veritable hive of industry, as many as fifty or sixty hands, mostly females, being employed in the height of the tsrastr.i. All tho lctect machinery for canning purposes is in evidence—apple peelers that shave the skin eff an apple and core the fruit in the twinkling of an eye, bubbling steem vats for 'cooking the fruit, a pulping machine, which in a marvellous manner separates the atebris from the refined material head. capping machines that solder up the tins in a second or two in fact, everything that goes to make up an up-to-date canning factory. In tho back portion of the factory is a quantity of machinery with which the firm manufacture its own tins for canning purposes, and outside, in a detached building, are hundreds and hundreds of tons of fruit pulp. The firm started operations some three or four years ago, and during that short space, of time its business has increasea to such a great extent that it has orders f jr hundreds and hundreds of cases of

prods which it cannot execute, and m many cases orders have to bo kept waiting for weeks and weeks before they van be fulfilled. The firm's goods penetrate to every part of New Zealand, an-1 the fact that the North Island t'ade would, if the firm saw fit, take all the available output, proves the unrivalled quality of the "Pioneer" canned fruits and other articles. Letters testifying to tho excellence of the ""Pioneer" brand are repeatedly beinu received by the manufacturers, not only from local firms, but from all parts of the Dominion. It may be stated, in conclusion, that the "Pioneer" products for the most part comprise Canterburygrown fruit, the firm sparing neither troubl" nor expense in getting the best material available.