The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1970. Black Marketing Of Apples

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32393, 4 September 1970, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1970. Black Marketing Of Apples

The Apple and Pear Marketing Bill which the Government intends to introduce in the House of Representatives this session will contain a clause giving inspectors of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board powers of entry and search. The board has for many years complained of the prevalence of black marketing of apples, and has evidently persuaded the Government that only by giving its inspectors these powers will it be able to stamp out the practice. Distributors and growers may well ask if the problem is as serious as the board evidently believes it to be, and, if it is, whether less objectionable measures to deal with it could not be found. A direct sale from a grower to a retailer constitutes black marketing. The retailer who buys direct cuts out two middlemen—the board and the wholesaler—and is probably able to pay the grower a higher price than the grower receives from the board yet still buy his fruit cheaper than from the market Growers are permitted, under the board’s empowering legislation, to sell only to the board or to final consumers. Black marketing is more common in Auckland and Christchurch, the only large centres of population near substantial orchards, than elsewhere in New Zealand, and has concerned the board ever since its establishment in 1948. In 1961 a committee of inquiry found that about 25 per cent of the apples consumed in New Zealand were distributed through channels outside the board. The 1961 committee, under the chairmanship of Mr G. E. Wood, found that about a third of the Auckland crop and about half the Canterbury crop were marketed through “other channels”. “It is quite “ evident ”, the committee’s report said, “ that much " greater use has been made of the permitted “ exceptions allowed in the act than was contemplated “by Parliament when the act was passed. Again, “ despite the stringent conditions in the act aimed “at preventing black marketing, it has been made “ obvious to the committee from evidence received “ from various witnesses that black marketing exists “ in some areas to an undesirable degree ”.

It is probable that black marketing exists in some areas today to an even more “ undesirable “ degree ”, The president of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation (Mr P. K. McCliskie) said recently that of the fruit sold on the New Zealand market more than 40 per cent was sold by the growers “ at the gate ” and 60 per cent by the board. The 40 per cent of sales at the gate obviously includes black-market sales to retailers; there have been frequent prosecutions of retailers for displaying for sale fruit acquired otherwise than from the board. The most recent prosecutions in Christchurch resulted in the conviction of three retailers, two of whom were fined $25 and one $l5. The maximum penalty is $4OO for an individual and $2OOO for a company. Token fines are unlikely to deter determined lawbreakers. Mr McCliskie has suggested that a levy should be imposed on all gate sales. This levy would at least reduce the gap between .the price received by the grower who sells his crop to the board and the price paid by the retailer, and hence reduce the temptation to both parties to trade on the black market It would also make a contribution to the considerable expense incurred by the board in maintaining the cool stores which enable It to offer sound fruit to the trade for 10 months of the year. A combination of a levy on gate sales and heavier penalties on black marketers might achieve the same result as the proposed powers of entry and search; it would certainly do less damage to the board’s public relations.