TOKENS FOR BREAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22393, 14 April 1936, Page 11

TOKENS FOR BREAD

PURCHASING IN AUSTRALIA COMMISSION'S SUGGESTION The use of tickets or metal tokens, representing portions of a penny, for use in purchasing bread, is suggested by the Australian Royal Commission which was appointed to inquire into the wheat, flour and bread industries. The use of such tokens, it was indicated in the commission's report, tabled in the Federal Parliament last week, would enable more equitable prices to be charged to the consumer. The report states that the Bread Board should encourage the industry to attack the problem of stabilising the margin of profit between costs and prices by the adoption of some system of tickets or metal tokens, sold to regular customers at a price somewhat lower than the normal cash price for a single loaf; this would effectively allow smaller variations in the price of the individual loaf than were at present practicable. The adjustment from time to time of prices to a fair and reasonable _ basis presented difficulties if the variations in the price of a single loaf were limited to a minimum of one farthing.

The report sets out the following; two systems by which adjustments could be made: The sale of tokens in dozens or half-dozens, which allowß the price of the dozen to be varied by Id, and effectively permits of variations in the price of the individual loaf of fractions of as small as one-twelfth of Id; or the use of tokens representing a fraction of Id. In the latter case, if the price of bread was s§d on a daily cash basis, a customer could pay s£d for the first loaf purchased, and receive a loaf of bread and three tokens of l-8d each; on the three subsequent days, he could pay sd, plus one of the tokens, for each loaf purchased.