Dispute Over Cases May Cause Vegetable Shortage

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 14

Dispute Over Cases May Cause Vegetable Shortage

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Dec. 2. An acute shortage of fruit and vegetables in Auckland and the Waikato is expected next week as a result of a breakdown in negotiations over the cost of fruit cases between the Vegetable and Produce Growers’ Federation and the Auckland Fruit and Produce Retailers’ Association.

The shortage is not expected to hit the housewife until Tuesday, but parties on both sides of the dispute expect it to be serious. The retailers have decided not to buy from the city markets fruit and vegetables which come in containers costing Is. According to Mr D. Haig, president of the Retailers’ Association, no European, Chinese or Indian shops will sell cabbages, cauliflowers, peas, beans, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, silver beet, swedes and lettuces in Auckland or Hamilton after Monday. The parties have agreed to meet under Government chairmanship on February 24, and unless a temporary settlement is effected before then, the situation could continue over Christmas. Attempts by the Auckland Fruit and Produce Merchants’ Association (Market Auctioneers) to arrange a meeting between the

disputing parties today failed. The retailers refused to deal with the growers’ federation as a national body, claiming that the dispute was local, and the federation refused to accept that the chairman’s decision would be binding. Mr C. G. Naish, president of the growers’ federation, said that because growers from Hawke’s Bay, Ohakune and Otaki sent produce to Auckland, he must deal with the dispute on a national or, at least, a North Island basis. He said there was, in fact, an over-supply of cases on the market and the federation was prepared to mediate, but because the retailers imposed impossible conditions on the meeting today the federation could not attend.