Retailers Complain About Tinned Oysters

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29824, 17 May 1962, Page 18

Retailers Complain About Tinned Oysters

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, May 15.

Oysters in tins were not favoured by Dunedin fish retailers, representatives of the retailers told the Parliamentary Select Committee on the fishing industry today.

“This is a most unsatisfactory set-up. A virtual monopoly dictates to the people of New Zealand in what form or state'they may have their own oysters, said Mr E. R. Macdonald, of the Dunedin Fish Retailers' Association. “In mainline towns in the South Island there seems to be no excuse for the merchants not supplying oysters in sacks,” Mr Macdonald said. “The quality of tinned oysters does not compare favourably with those opened in the shop.” The freshness of the tinned oyster was very difficult to judge with any degree of accuracy, he said. Often by the time the public got the oysters they were past their prime and the consumer was almost an animated garbage container for the opening factory. The main reason that merchants tinned oysters was the increased profit they made, Mr Macdonald said. A member of the commit-

tee. Mr R. Muldoon asked the president of the association. Mr T. C. Earnsha'w, if retailers would make an extra profit if they opened the oysters. Mr Earnshaw replied that retailers could open the oysters for less than the southern merchants.

The president of the NewZealand Retailers’ Federation. Mr A. V. Robertshaw, of Timaru, cited the oyster industry as a “classic example of restrictive licensing not being carried to its logical conclusion.”

It was a national asset and should be administered on a national basis instead of for the benefit of a few fortunate enough to be granted an oyster licence, he said.