“PROPOSAL NOT UNEXPECTED”

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25537, 3 July 1948, Page 8

“PROPOSAL NOT UNEXPECTED”

PRODUCE CONTROL OF MARKETING

VIEW OF MERCHANTS’ PRESIDENT “The Government’s announcement was not unexpected, as previous indications had been given of the Government’s change of policy from attempted State marketing to one of producer control marketing.” said the president of the Fruit and Produce Merchants’ and Auctioneers’ Federation of New Zealand (Mr H. Turner), commenting on the Government’s proposals for the marketing of apples and pears. The pooling system, with a Government guaranteed price was undoubtedly favoured by the majority of pip fruit growers, providing the price guaranteed by the Government was considered satisfactory. Mr Turner said. The guaranteed price system had been in operation since 1940, when the export market for apples and pears was temporarily lost because of the war. The new Fruit Control Board would obviously take the place of the Marketing Department, in the purchase of apples and pears from the growers, and distribution to markets and export. It was to be hoped that the new control would be an improvement on the work of the Fruit Marketing Council, which had been responsible for the marketing of apples and pears in the last three or four years. The Fruit and Produce Merchants’ and Auctioneers’ Federation members throughout New Zealand were the wholesale distributors of apples and pears. Several seasons ago, the'l.M.D. attempted to supplant established fruit and produce distributors and sell direct to the retail trade, but the scheme failed and practically no sales were made by the I.M.D. except in Auckland. Many of the weaknesses and mistakes in marketing which had occurred in the last few years and including this year, could have been avoided had the Government and the Fruit Marketing Council accepted the offers made by the Fruit Merchants’ Federation to provide their expert advice, Mr Turner said. Instead of that, merchants had been left in the dark and the value of the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime by those trained in the business had been wasted. Meetings were being arranged in the apple growing areas by the federation, at which growers would be directly advised, of the wholesale distributors’ point of view and illustrations given of obvious weaknesses in marketing methods in the sale of apples and pears, with sugfiestions for improvements in the uture.