Chch may be best place to buy Bluff oysters

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 4

Chch may be best place to buy Bluff oysters

Christchurch should be the cheapest place in New 'Zealand to buy fresh Bluff oysters this year. With the Bluff oyster fleet due to sail on Monday, Christchurch wholesalers and retailers are well aware that the price has to be kept down to beat the buyer resistance evident during- the 1980 season. .

Weather permitting, the first truckloads of oysters will reach Christchurch on Tuesday. The price is expected to be less than $1.90 a dozen even though Invercargill retailers’have said they will charge $1.92 a dozen -this season.

In spite of distance, freight, and other costs, raw oysters have consistently been a few cents cheaper in Christchurch than in Bluff — a stone’s throw from the wharf where they are landed — and Invercargill. “Retailers don’t want to undercut one another. It is a matter of keeping a perishable produce moving,” said the president of the Christchurch 4 Fish Retailers’ Association, Mr B. E. Mather. Christchurch , had the cheapest oysters .in . the Crtufh lelund tact .CMRnn

; North of Christchurch, prices rose steadily. Oysters cost between $1.20 and $1.30 a dozen in Christchurch in 1979. The' pri. a reached $l.BO a dozen at the start of the 1980 season, but later fell to between $1.45 and $1.60. The 1980 season ended , with many Christchurch retailers unhappy about the future of oysters on ■ the local market. They saidjthat oysters had not sold nearly as well as in the past, but were divided about the possible reasons. Some retailers were convinced that steady price rises over the years had finally made oysters too expensive for the “average” New Zealander. ' Others blamed wholesalers .: for “dumping”, too many sacks the Cnristchurch market. Mr Mather believes that the poor sales were the result of the season’s having started two months late — one month was lost through industrial troubles and another through rough weather — and a resulting glut on the market during the remainder of the season. “The six-month quota was compressed into four months of fresh sales. If the price is right and the season is

spread over the full six months, they will sell all right,” said Mr Mather.

Christchurch retailers and wholesalers will meet to agree on the 1981 price on Monday? Several said yester-c-iy that it should not be above $1.90. For the first time in several years, the season should get under way without an

industrial hitch. Oystermen and oyster-openers, and other parties involved, have already agreed on wages and conditions.

The oyster quota will be the same as last season. The Bluff fleet of 23 boats is allowed to dredge a total of 115,000 sacks before August 31, an average of 85 sacks a boat ’, '