DUMPING OF APPLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 27 October 1941, Page 4

DUMPING OF APPLES

EXPLANATION BY DEPARTMENT COOL STORE WASTAGE Christchurch, Oct. 26. Comment on newspaper reports on cool store wastage in fruit and reference to reported “dumping" at Bluff, recently were made yesterday by Mr W. Benzies, officer in charge of the apple and pear marketing (Internal Division) in an interview. | “There is a tendency,” said Mr Ben- ! zies, “for the newspapers to make a feature of cool store wastage, and I feel that either the newspapers do not understand the real position or that the public are given a wrong conception of the position. I have been associated with fruit for quite a number of years and I do know that wastage from a cool store is a normal happening, not only in New Zealand, but in all other fruit-producing countries. “It is only in recent years that New Zealand has introduced compulsory standardisation of apples and pears. I think that was in operation two years before this Government purchasing scheme. That means that those cool store losses were occurring before the introduction of standardisation. The introduction of this does tend to increase the amount of cool store wastage, because there are certain cool store complaints, such as scald, or flesh collapse, under standardisation, and that type of fruit cannot be marketed. Before standardisation that type of fruit was often sold for what it would bring on the local market. Now we try to keep it off, hence what happened at Bluff recently. DISCARDING PRINCIPLE “In keeping to standardisation, nevertheless, we try to avoid undue discarding of fruit. Everything we can honestly put into grades is put in but of fruit put on the Invercargill market recently there was a line of 90 cases which could not be sold, even at the low price of 2s 6d a case, and which was given to a charitable institution. This goes to show that our grading regulations are not harsh. We are, however, subject to inspections,” Mr Benzies added. “Apples which have lost their mosture content and therefore have not a week’s life left in them must be discarded. To the uninitiated they appear wholesome fruit, but the experienced man knows that there is not enough life left in that fruit for it to go through the channels of broker and retailer to consumer and still remain in a suitable condition.—P.A.