Grocers in ‘spotlight’

Press, 1 November 1982, Page 6

Grocers in ‘spotlight’

PA. • Rotorua Grocery manufacturers were “living in a goldfish bowl,” said the president of the New Zealand Grocery Manufactuers Association, Mr D. W. Bagley, in Rotorua at the week-end. "We are the people in the spotlight while the price freeze is in effect,” he said. “No cither industry is subject x to, such constant public scrutinyl" . The association applauded

the Government’s efforts to halt inflation. As long as manufacturers were forced to comply with price-freeze regulations, it must have a dampening effect on the inflationary spiral, Mr Bagley said. The association was not concerned about when the regulations were lifted, but how they were lifted. The hint was. he said, that the Government would not be able merely to take the lid off the price freeze. There would have to be a

> number of continuing res- ; traints. A return to the priceI justification schemes might s be in the Government’s mind, i The freeze had squeezed > manufacturers' margins, but ■ it was too early to say whether the measures had : affected employment within : the industry, Mr Bagley said. "However,-I rwould not discount it,” he said.' Consumers were largely unaware that there had been s a number of self-imposed price constraints in the i grocery manufacturing in-

dustry. Mr Bagley said that he knew of several cases where manufacturers had legitimate grounds for price increases, but had not applied for them. He said that part of the answer to New Zealand’s economic woes lay in increased productivity. The New Zealand attitude was too strongly inclined to egalitarianism. Rewards must be justified, he said. “We are not owed a living — we must earn it,” he said.