EGG BLACK MARKET

Grey River Argus, 8 January 1944, Page 2

EGG BLACK MARKET

GROWS IN CANTERBURY. P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 7. The black marketing in eggs has reached serious proportions in the Canterbury egg marketing district, according to the chairman of directors of the central egg floor. Mr. C. Ferguson. On a turnover involving over one million dozen eggs in twenty weeks to the end of December last, the central floor showed a dron in supplies of 150,000 dozen eggs, compared with the corresponding period in 1942. Those eggs, he said, were obviously being sold through illegal channels. Actually, the extent of the black marketing, said Mr. Ferguson, w'as even greater because the eggs received in 1942 did not represent anything like the total that should have come through the central egg floor. It was estimated that an additional 200,000 dozen eggs were not being marketed through regulation channels.

“The position has now become so serious that the Internal Marketing Division has decided to take drastic action against those engaged in black marketing,” satd Mr. Ferguson. From Monday, he said, all eggs distributed on the Christchurch market through the legal channels would be stamped with the initials of the Central Egg Floor. This meant that traders in eggs not bearing the stamp would be liable to prosecution and their eggs confiscated. It was the intention to change the colour of the stamp on the eggs each week. That would enable the Central Floor also to cope with complaints about eggs being stale.