Avoiding Potato Wastage

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31031, 11 April 1966, Page 1

Avoiding Potato Wastage

The New Zealand Potato Board hopes that a poster it is issuing will come to the notice of all people who handle potatoes, from the harvest field to the consumer’s plate. The reason is the considerable wastage which occurs in potatoes between these two points. In the United Kingdom this has been found to be up to 45 per cent.

Mr M. P. H. Rousham. executive officer of the Potato Board, who has collaborated with Butler Graham Advertising. Ltd., of Christchurch, in the preparation of the poster, said that a grower had to produce at least another third more potatoes to ensure that, a certain quantity reached the consumer’s plate. It was Mr Rousham's desire;

to get the message of a film called "A Crop of Problems," which the board has received from the Potato Marketing Board in the United Kingdom. to as great a number of people as possible who are concerned with handling potatoes, that began the idea of the poster. The film is concerned with the problems involved in harvesting and handling potatoes. Open Letter

Part of the poster is devoted to an open letter to “Mr Potato Handler.” It reads: “Now let’s just have a good look at this ‘conversion’ business. We don’t want to convert anyone to any particular creed, but soon we’re all converting to dollars and we would like you to consider how easily dollars can be converted to cents—at your expense. Now take Mr Grower, for instance. He has a bumper crop, but by the time it passes from his field, through his shed, through the transporter, into the market,

out of the market into the retail shop, into the home and on to the plate of the conburner, up to 33 per cent can be wasted-by sheer carelessness in handling. And nobody in this world can afford to waste food. From ‘Us Potatoes’.”

A series of cartoons support the letter seeking careful handling of the potato at digging, harvesting, grading, loading, unloading and in stacking.

It is hoped that these posters will be seen by persons who work on potato harvesting machinery, and who are engaged in the transport of potatoes, including motortruck drivers, railways staff and workers on the wharves, workers in merchants’ stores, and in the auction rooms and markets.

The industry is at present ' investigating the possibility of a wooden plywood bin being used to take the place of the sack for movement of pota-

toes, on the lines of the bins now used for handling small seeds.

It is felt that this could also make a contribution to improved handling. Mr Rousham hopes to show the British film on potato handling, and another from the United Kingdom Potato Marketing Board called “A Crop for All Seasons,” as widely as possible, and through application to him they will be available for showing to any organisations. The second film deals with the research and testing that is involved in seeking to find the perfect potato. In Britain about 150,000 seeds are sown each year to this end, with [about a 50,000 to once chance | that something worth-while will result. The film shows how potatoes are tested in the laboratory for cooking quality and has some advice for the housewife on how to make the best use of potatoes and what to look for in buying ! potatoes. 1