Tea industry to to 'repair image'

Press, 31 October 1977, Page 14

Tea industry to to 'repair image'

New Zealanders will see more tea advertising this year as the industry gears up to encourage more people to quench their thirst with a “cuppa.” Members of the Tea Council were given details by the chairman (Mr A. Moore) at Rotorua There would also be more positive attempts “to repair the image of the tea industry,” Mr Moore said, alluding to adverse publicity because of poverty on some tea plantations. “There is no reason to conceal the manner in which the industry’s employees labour to achieve simple living standards,” he said. “There is no reason to conceal either the political, economic or social problems which affect them.”

The Tea Council had approached the Education Department to see whether it

would welcome “factual information. as distinct from either propaganda for a political viewpoint, or camoflaged advertising.” Tea’s marketing system, while imperfect, was “still too good for heavy-handed intervention which could quickly throw the whole system out of control,” Mr Moore said. Regardless of production costs, prices could fall “as fast as they have risen if we continue without an adequate formula for regulation,” he said. Prices now being paid offered a good return to the producer, he said, but “they no longer represent a boom; nor are they likely to facilitate, except very slowly, the improvements in labour conditions, field and factory standards which are badly needed.”