EMPIRE MARKETING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 7

EMPIRE MARKETING

NEW ZEALAND'S DISPLAY

SHOP OPENED AT BIRMINGHAM

(From a Correspondent.) LONDON, 18th February. Now Zealand is the first Dominion to' display her produce in the "Empira Shop" just opened by the Empire Marketing Board in Birmingham, the capital of the Midlands. Throughout tha opening day crowds pourod into the shop leased by the board in High street, one of the main shopping thoroughfares. New Zealand butter, honey, cheese, and lamb filled the windows, and tempted the passing housewife inside. Men, too, came in with their wives, often carrying on their shoulders a baby who stared with round eyes at the sprightly "Imperial Bees" decorating the honey jars or the trim girls wrapping butter into sample packets as fast as the machine would work. Samples of cheese, honey, and butter are on sale, and housewives can also learn new ways of using their purchases . iin tha demonstration kitchen,' whero women experts give free cooking demonstrations three times a day. The Empire Marketing Board has leased this shop, for some months, and. is handing it over for a fortnight each to New Zealand and other parts of tha Empire. During the whole fortnight of New Zealand's tenancy nothing but her butter will be used in the kitchen. New ways of cooking New Zealand lamb will be shown, special honey cakes will be made, and Birmingham women will be introduced to toheroa soup. SALES BY CINEMA. The shop itself, which was officially taken over this week on behalf of New Zealand by Sir Thomas Wilford, K.C., the High Commissioner, includes two long counters piled high with cheese and butter on one side, and honey on' the other. Another stand shows a selection of biscuits which, are made by a big Birmingham firm, and for which' only New Zealand butter is used. Behind is a second room where a daylight cinema gives a continuous performance of short films showing scenes of production in the Empire. Another cinema, twin to this one, has been in-* stalled at the main railway station. This is an entirely new experiment, and attracts considerable crowds, which1 are urged at intervals on the screen to visit the Empire Shop. Birmingham is, so far, responding splendidly to the first Empire Shop to be organised in England. For the opening fortnight the shop was given, over to a display of the produce of England and Wales, and, during the first week, there were more samples sold, than during the first fortnight at the Glasgow shop," which ran for six months last year. . Over 13,000 samples were sold. This beginning has led the NewZealand organisers to hope for even better results from their display than' were achieved at Glasgow. BUTTER GAINING GROUND. Particular efforts are being made to push New Zealand butter in the Midlands and the North, where Danish still holds the field. ' New Zealand is gaining ground steadily. A representative of the largest Birmingham grocers' firm told me that his sales of New Zealand butter had gone up 50 per cent, in the last year. An intensive butter drive is also now being carried out in. Lancashire and Yorkshire, with headquarters at Manchester, by the Empire Marketing Board. Birmingham grocers are keen supporters of the campaign and a conference room for traders has been fitted up below the shop. Closest co-operation is maintained, of course, with the trade, and a list of -etailers stocking the New Zealand products displayed is kept, so that any inquiring housewife can b« told the name of the retailer nearest her homo where the Empire article which has caught her fancy can be obtained regularly. One enthusiastic grocer recently de* cided that the best way to break a customer's habit of saying "a pound of Danish" was by enlisting the shop assistants' ■ personal feelings. He had the New Zealand butter displayed on the counter and all the Danish was kept in a cellar. Every time a customer asked for Danish the assistant had to walk to the back of the shop, descend si long flight of steps, and carryup the order. In a few months he'Svaa selling nothing but New Zealand butter. PRICES AND A FOG. A London fog that sent the price of butter up by 12s a hundredweight was mentioned by Sir Thomas "Wilford in his opening address. The fog prevented the ships which were carrying butter from coming up the Thames and unloading. Most of the big wholesalers had been holding short, owing to falling prices, to such an extent that they, found their stacks were exhausted. Tha price rose in a few hours to meet the sudden demand. More than 9,000,000 carcasses of New Zealand-lambs, the High Commissioner told his audience, had passed through. Smithfield last year, and of these onlythirty were condemned—and in several cases because of faulty thawing. No other country in the world, he said, could claim a better record for high, quality, evenness, and strict grading. The quality of New Zealand produce will, it is confidently expected, be quickly recognised by Birmingham, and what Birmingham's 000,000 inhabitants buy to-day the industrial Midlands will buy to-morrow. Tho Empire Marketing Board fc»» lieves that its policy of opening shop!! n the great cities of the United Kinj^ dom will do much to spread the habij? of buying front New Zealand and th^ other Dominions.