FROZEN FRUIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21328, 1 November 1932, Page 11

FROZEN FRUIT

SUCCESS IN AMERICA PROFITABLE BY-PRODUCTS DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY Returning to Sydney from a visit to Canada and the United States, where he made inquiries on behalf of the New South Wales Government into the marketing of citrus fruits and the manufacture of fruit by-products, Mr. C. G. Savage, director of fruit culture, Department of Agriculture, New South Wales, arrived by the Niagara from Vancover yesterday. He was particularly interested in the rapid growth of the fruit-freezing industry in California. "They are going in seriously for the frozen pack of fruit," said Mr. Savage. "This is bound to affect the canned fruit trade, and is a new feature worth watching. Where special facilities are to be found for holding the fruit in cool storage, for instance, in restaurants, hotels and cafes, it should prove very acceptable, for it is always an advantage to have fresh fruit in all seasons." The manufacture of by-products from fru.t was a large industry in California. Its purpose was twofold. In the first place, it was a very successful way of using up the low-grade fruit and so preserving the market for fruit of the highest quality, and in the second place, it was a very profitable enterprise in itself. Fruit juices, crushed fruits, citric acid and oils were some of the principal byproducts manufactured in California. In Canada the manufacture of fermented cfder was a growing industry, while in the United States, where the manufacture of fermented cider was illegal, a standardised apple juice was sold under the label of sweet cider. Mr. Savage was greatly impressed with the highly-efficient organisation built up in the United States for the marketing of fruit and the efforts being made there to pack fruit on standardised lines. "Australia, and I daresay New Zealand too, has much to learn from the Americans in these matters," he said. "Let me give you an example of the wonderful organisation built up by one of the growers' co-operative organisations, the Californian Fruitgrowers' Exchange, which controls the marketing of Sunkist oranges. There are, I think, 26 centres of this huge organisation, and they are all linked up by direct telegraph lines. A girl typist, using a teletype, taps out messages which a]yiear simultaneously in each of the 26 centres in America. By this system of communication every centre knows at any moment of the day where every car-load of fruit happens to be, and the price being paid in every city in the United States. The whole gigantic business is controlled, one might say, at the finger-tips, and at a moment's notice it is possible to stop the journey of any carload of fruit and divert it to a more favourable market." Australian citrus fruits, said Mr. Savage, had been favourably received in Canada, which was experiencing a wave of enthusiasm for the purchase of Empire products. Australian canned and dried fruits also were being commented upon in Canada, in highly favourable terms.