SHEFFIELD CUTLERY MARKET

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 8

SHEFFIELD CUTLERY MARKET

EXPORT TRADE COMES FIRST

The British Board of Trade has promised that the Sheffield cutlery industry will get all the steel it requires to achieve the export target announced by Sir Stafford Cripps. The new target increases the monthly export figure by £llO.OOO. It is expected, says "The Times.” that the home supply of cutlery will be reduced by at least 20 per cent.; makers have been warned to expect cuts in steel supplies for the home trade.

Criticism of "old-fashioned” British cutlery. and keen disappointment about quality have been found by an investigator undertaking market research in Canada for a Sheffield firm of cutlery manufacturers. Reporting to the firm, he says: "For the last six months importers have been receiving shipments in respect of orders which have been pending for periods up to two years; in many cases they have been bitterly disanpointed with the quality in view of the high prices charged; in some quarters there is a very real prejudice on this account: American cutlery is now on the Canadian market in . fair quantities, some of it high quality and in many cases better finished than British products in the same price range.”