BREAD FOR EASTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 21 April 1938, Page 10

BREAD FOR EASTER.

SITUATION AT AUCKLAND

LOSSES INCURRED. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 20. Heavy losses were suffered by a number of Auckland master bakers during Easter through the activities of “pirate bakers,” a master baker stated to-day, and he estimated that lie and others had lost fully 25 per cent of the sales they should have made. According to the award, employers of labour are not permitted to bake on statutory holidays, consequently the bread they baked on Saturday was for sale on Monday. “Pirate bakers,” he said, had baked on Sunday and flooded the market on Monday with fresh bread. Consequently the re-sellers had returned to the master bakers about a quarter of the bread they had looked upon as being sold. In a statement he said that he and others in a similar position sold a large proportion of their bread wholesale to shops. Before baking on Saturday his firm went to no little trouble to estimate how 'much bread would need to be bilked to carry over Easter Monday. About 200 shops were called upon and their requirements estimated. No slight sum was spent in penalty and overtime to execute the orders. “Everything went well until our vans returned to-day,” he continued, “when the vans brought back as much as 25 per cent of their Saturday’s sales, due entirely to the fact that fresh bread had been delivered to the shops on Easter Monday. The law says that on this day I must give my employees a holiday and pay them for it. Some of our customers told us they had bread ordered and paid for, and when the people found there was fresh bread to be had they went and asked for their money back and left the shopkeepers with the bread on their hands. To-day we had to take this bread back.

“The total waste on stale returns over the Easter week-end would be an eye-opener. I am convinced that for every fresh loaf sold in Auckland today a. stale one would be fed to the pigs some time during this week. I feel sure that if the authorities learn of the colossal waste caused by this sort of thing they will do something about it.” , „ The matter was referred to Mr b. S Green, secretary of the Auckland Master Bakers’ Association. He said the experience over the recent holiday period had been a disastrous one for the master bakers. There were, lie taid. at least a dozen “pirate bakers in Auckland and the position was such that lie had notified the Department of Labour. The present law was full of loopholes and it was the intention of the association to have the matter placed before the Government.