“THEY WANT APPLES”

Evening Star, Issue 19444, 30 December 1926, Page 5

“THEY WANT APPLES”

NORTH OF ENGLAND PEOPLE ENGLISH MARKET HOT YET COVERED “ They ship the great bulk of their fruit to London; but to a very large extent neglect the northern market of England—markets serving half the population of England.” The “they” referred to were the Now Zealand fruit exporters, and the speaker was Mr J. F. Kruger, director of White and Son, Ltd., fruit brokers, Hull, in an interview to the Wellington Post.’ Mr Kruger, who is in Wellington, explained that, although the head office of White and Co. was in Hull, the company owned or has controlling interests in fruit-broking ■ firms in, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Nowcastle-on-Tyne, and Antwerp. Ho spoke then, not from experience of one market, Hull, the clioif port of the eastern side of England, but of the United Kingdom as a whole. For himself he had been fifty-throe years in the one fruit firm, with the White organisation. He advised greater distribution of fruit exported from New Zealand. He said Colonel Grey, who went Home on behalf of New Zealand fruit exporters, had made a thorough investigation of English markets and their possibilities. “Ho did not confine his attention to London, as many other investigators have done,” said Mr Kruger, “ but did his job well, exhaustively, going to all the chief ports in England where fruit is bought and sold, and ho went to the Continent to see what were the possibilities there.”

LONDON NOT THE ONLY PORT.

“ Now Zealand should have a splen* did outlet for all that it produces, oven if it confines its business to the United Kingdom; but it must not be tied down nr tie itself down to London. The North of England doesn’t care_ a damp about London; it buys its fruit in its own markets, and it buys heavily. I venture to say that there are populous centres in the north that know nothing of New Zealand apples. If the Now Zealand orchardist imagines that all England is sitting on the dockside waiting to buy his ■ apples, the sooner he gets that idea out of. his head the bet* tor. The trade wants apples. It wants the fruit. All that can be grown in,' this dominion they can and they will take, providing the fruit is of the right' color, the right kind, and is pushed under the noses of the buyers. Noi matter where the fruit comes from, if it is the right color, the fruit they ; want, they will buy it. They know— ( what, perhaps, is not realised in New,! Zealand—that more than half the fruit eaten in England is eaten in the North!, of England. ,1 “THE RIGHT COLOR.”' I

“ New Zealand has the fruit of thd right color. In fact, New Zealand apples have a better color than any, others in my experience: hut the fruit arrives more nr less ‘ mealy.’ This will be duo to the long voyage, and some* times to delay in shipment from New Zealand. if fanners ship immature fruit too early it i« not only immature on arrival, hut it ‘lnks the tail end’' of the American shipment, and there* fore does not realise the prices expected or that it would command if it eame on to a barer market. Tin’s must he avoided.”

Tlio greater part of American fruit, sent to England, said Mr Kruger, was from the States of Oregon and Washington, and these wore “ the pick of the lot,” he said. A certain amount came from British Columbia. All this was packed in eases. Early apples from the States of Virginia, New York, and Maine were shipped in barrels. The tendency, however, was to export in cases rallicr than barrels. Shipments should be made in such a manner as to feed all tho markets of England, not to put all the eggs into one basket and —what was very important—should ho m arranged that they .should arrive when the American fruit was well out of the market. Mr Kruger was asked about tho practicability of shipping pears, and in reply said ho was convinced that theso should be carried in separate compartments. They might go through nil right with apples—indeed, had done so—but it was a highly risky proceeding. “ROTTEN!” Last year’s business was touched upon, and Mr Kruger described tho market as “ rotten.” First there was the arsenic scare, which hit the Americans very hard; on top <W Hint cam© the coal strike: then the general strike, and the coal strike continued. Theso were factors in the situation that the orchardist and the trade generally could not guard against or prevent. He .strongly advised the use of every port in the United Kingdom, splitting up the fruit into shipments in accordance with the populations served by those ports. There was no, sense or reason in incurring tho cost of, say, a shilling a case in fruit carried from London to those other markets. New Zealand fruit was a big thing at 700,000 cases, but not so big when put by the side of Australia’s four million cases.

Sontli American composition' was 'referred to, hut Mr Kruger remarked that there was nothing yc-r, to fear from that quarter. He had seen apples in / (he English market that !md enmo from Chile. They were very few. Tho fact was the fruit grown in South America was too far bade from the coast, and it would moan heavy railage to get it there to seriously compete with fruit from Australia and New Zealand.

“ But tho point you in New Zealand must keep in miiid,” he concluded, “ is that England, as a market ior ,Vw Zealand fruit, is not half exploited. It can be done, and economically, at this end by arranging that the slop shall lam] her fruit at the ports serving largo centres of population, the natural ports of the individual great : consuming localities.”