MARKETING OF OYSTERS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22371, 7 April 1938, Page 15

MARKETING OF OYSTERS

COOPERATIVE PLAN RECOMMENDED

PROPOSALS OF INVESTIGATION

COMMITTEE A lack of adequate organisation within the industry for dealing with the dredging and marketing of oysters is one of the major points mentioned by the Sea Fisheries Investigation Committee, which presented its report to Parliament last month. Through the Minister for Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, the committee has now made available for publication the full text of its report on the oyster industry. This report contains, among other important recommendations, a proposal that the industry should adopt some form of co-operative marketing. “One of the unsatisfactory features about the distribution of oysters (and a feature which the distributors themselves have acknowledged and attempted to rectify to some extent) is the lack of proper organisation in handling and marketing the whole of the supplies in the most economical way,” the report states. “While it is true that the majority of the nine firms actively engaged in the 1937 season have some system of pooling orders for the main centres and for the relatively small export trade to Australia, the others are selling independently to all points and all nine are in direct competition with each other in those localities outside the main centres. When such a commodity as this (taken from identical localities in Foveaux Strait and landed at the one point for distribution to the consumer) is being considered, it becomes obvious that some form of cooperative marketing is essential not only to serve the interests of the companies themselves but to eliminate overhead expenditure with a resultant reduction in price to the consumer. Too often in the past, indulgence in uneconomic price-cutting has been the rule, particularly when one or more new unite came into the industry and found either that some reduction in price was necessary to secure custom or that the established firms were reducing quotations with the objective of eliminating this fresh competition.” Price Differences Dealing with prices and the difference of 2s a sack (f.o.r. Bluff) between the 1936 and 1937 seasons (the price rose to 14s 6d a sack in 1937), the committee says: “While the increase in price of 2s a sack appears to be justified, it does not necessarily follow that 14s 6d is by any means the minimum for profitable working. Under the present arrangements it is evident, although each firm has only one boat operating, that the f.o.r. price of 14s 6d is on the high side for those units which are operating more efficiently and economically than others, and, all things remaining equal, some reduction in this figure is necessary, and the reduced price would require to be one definitely fixed and not nominal as in many cases during the past. Such a reduction in price would bring up the question ,of the return to the least efficient unit, but in this connexion and in respect of the whole matter of marketing generally it has become demonstrably clear that all units must be influenced to come into line and market co-operatively the whole of the supplies. 'There is a pooling of orders as amongst the majority of the firms, six in number’ (and in addition one whose supplies are bought in). This arrangement applies to orders from Dunedin, Christcnurch. Wellington, and to export to Melbourne, but it does not go far enough. Something of this nature should apply to all supplies and to all markets. For economic purposes and for efficiency in the trade, distribution should be effected through one central organisation with a selling representative in each of the main centres.” Committee’s Findings The specific recommendations of the committee follow: That steps be taken to bring about a co-operative system of handling and marketing dredge oysters. This might be arranged through a company already in existence, but not functioning, i.e., the New Zealand Oyster Distributing Company, Ltd., or by the setting up of a central organisation with similar objects and vested with power to control handling and marketing and fix prices f.o.r. Bluff. That oysters can be packed for sale in sacks of a standard size and containing a standard weight or volume of oysters. That encouragement be given to experiments being made for transporting shucked or opened oysters, say, to Wellington, with the object of eliminating to some extent the relatively _ high transport costs to the more distant centres of distribution. That the operations of concerns which are preparing medicinal preparations from dredge oysters be confined to within reasonable limits in the matter of .supplies of their raw material.