FRUIT INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19503, 6 December 1926, Page 16

FRUIT INDUSTRY.

THE ENGLISH MARKET. POOLING OF EXPORTS. COMPETITION FROM AMERICA. Our Wairarapa correspondent writes: — Colonel Gray, chairman of the New Zealand Fruit Control Board, addressed a large gathering" of Wairarapa fruitgrowers at Greytown, and in the course of his address said that American dealers were flooding the English market with American apples, and this trade showed marked signs of materially increasing, to the detriment of New Zealand growers. The American system was to send straight lines, as this kept down the handling costs. Instead of this selling merchants having to identify the fruit of hundreds of different growers, as was the case in New Zealand, they only dealt with about two brands of American fruit. Colonel Gray said that he thought that this could bo met to a certain extent by growers in various districts pooling their apples before exporting. They could not disguise the fact that, while America had a free market in Great Britain, she was a serious competitor in iruit. There was a good market at Home for apples at an . average price of from 12s to 13s per case. At this rate they all knew what the profit to the grower would be —hardly sufficient to keep a roof over his head. la regard to the Continental markets., his advice was not to ship direct to these as Continental buyers made their purchases in London. Dealing with distribution, the speaker said that they wanted one man as a distributor, and all tho others as sellers. They did not desire the agent and the seller to be competing against each other, as this tended to drag down prices. They were told that competition was good for trade, but this was the biggest trap tho producer ever fell into. Competition was all right among retailers but ' not among wholesalers. It was desirable to have one body of accredited sellers in each big centre. All the brokers had a strong leaning toward American fruit because it was easy to handle and excellently packed. Conditions in England were going to force pooling, 100 many varieties were exported, and the basis of value was often assessed for the season on an unpopular variety. Warning was to be given that certain varieties would be disqualified after 1930, and growers would thus be given time to replace the trees with a popular variety. They wanted an apple that would give them a' good average return over the whole. The very best fruit only must go to Great Britain if they were to command a price. It was imposnible to nurse a market; they had to clean 'it out so that the on-coming fruit would have a bare market. If any man was making a profit out of fruit under the present conditions it was the retailer. Fruit was still considered a luxury and not a necessity, and the profiteers could not be attacked. He had seen apples purchased by the retailer at 4d per lb. and sold at 8d Except for bananas, there was a bare patch on the English fruit market in August. It had occurred to him that they might try out this bare market, and he was asking that 300 growers put up 20 cases each of ono variety, which would be placed in cosl storage until the time arrived to sell thenj. They would create a small pool, and share the profits,'if any. < Colonel Gray said that in tile pit district of England almost every, miner had a gooseberry bush in front of his home. It wais wonderful how large these gooseberries grew The secret of it was that after tea the miner lit his pipe and engaged in the process of swelling his gooseberries. He filled the lid of a tobacco tin wiih water and went through tho operatioii of dipping the beard of the gooseberry in. water, letting it remain there for some time. "If you want big goosebeiries," he said, "exercise patience, and try this operation."