Cold Snaps Warn Winter Is Near

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31052, 6 May 1966, Page 17

Cold Snaps Warn Winter Is Near

[By Our Grocery Reporter]

Two early-morning cold snaps this week—along with much colder evenings—are sure signs that winter is on the way. This means housewives will have to turn to winter menus.

Winter is always regarded in the grocery trade as being one of the best times of the year for selling; mainly because in cold weather people eat more.

Groceries are widely advertised these days, and this week the emphasis has been on winter lines.

Housewives shopping in some parts of the city have a wide range of “specials” to choose from, and they can fill their baskets at much lower cost.

Among “specials” at the moment are soups, spaghetti, baked beans, green peas, beetroot and fruit juice. Soups, in cans, packs and mixes, oats, and vegetables, frozen, canned and dehydrated, are among popular winter lines.

Canned Tomatoes. — Earlier In the year some canners indicated that, because of crop problems, canned tomato orders would not all be filled. Now stocks of some lines are already in short supply. It seems that the housewife could be without canned tomatoes later this year. New Soup Varieties. — Crest Foods are now introducing two new soups for the winter. One is a cream and the other concentrated. One variety, tomato with veal and rice, is a fine meaty cream soup. It is expected to retail at 2s 4d. The

concentrated soup is tomato with alphabet noodles. This should be popular with youngsters. It is expected to retail for about 2s a can. Canned Salmon. Prospects for new season’s salmon are not good. This year a poor cycle of fishing is expected. It will be recalled that pink salmon—the most popular seller on the New Zealand market—was very difficult to buy immediately after the fishing season was completed last year. At the present time no quotations are available. Indications are that prices are bound to increase, particularly if the catch is small. New Zealand importers also have a 15 per cent reduction in licences on the 1965-66 period so that the outlook at this stage is not very bright. Australian Rice.— New season’s prices are being quoted for Australian rice, and, in line with the trend of other imports, this rice shows a slight increase in price of about 16s a ton. This increase is not as great as those for Siam and American rice. Pineapple. Malayan pineapple prices are now being quoted and importers will be placing orders for the coming licensing period. Imports of pineapple have been reduced by 25 per cent so this is another problem to be faced. One large Malayan cannery’s prices show a slight increase but this is because of higher freight rates. With the reduction in licences all buyers will be trying to buy pineapple on the keenest market. Californian Prunes. When prices for Californian prunes opened at the beginning of this year they showed an increase and then firmed until about two months ago. Since then prices have remained steady. Most packers are able to quote all sizes and varieties of packs. The increased prices could possibly help the Australians market their packet prunes.