THE APPLE MARKET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25238, 29 May 1943, Page 4

THE APPLE MARKET

REGULATION OF SUPPLIES RELEASE OF MONTHLY QUOTAS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 28. As the flush period for apples is now over the supply will be less plentiful from now on. To ensure that apples will continue to be available to the public to the end of the year a system of regulating the supplies coming on the market will he adopted by the internal marketing division from the end of May. , . . Announcing this to-day, the Minister of Marketing (Mr J. G. Barclay) said the object was to provide that the .total quantities of apples marketed eacn month, particularly in the difficult period September to December, would be the same month by month as last year. Mr Barclay said that this year s total crop was slightly greater than last year’s. The quantity remaining for distribution to the public from the beginning of June was just under 1.000.000 cases, compared with about 600.000 cases normally for the same period before the war'. But 1.000,000 cases would not last tor seven months if two months’ supply were consumed in one mon,th., Apples had been stabilised at last year’s price levels, and increased spending . power and the scarcity of imported fruits were resulting in an abnormal demand for apples. Another factor contributing to the need for regulating supplies, the Minister said, was that New Zealand this year had to supply apples to the Allied troops as well as to our own men m the Pacific. This reduced the quantity for home consumption 1 . Illustrating the present abnormal demand for apples, the Minister said tnat in the first three weeks of May the turnover of the internal _ marketing division had been respectively 93.000, 89.000. and 92,000 cases. The immediate reduction under the system of regulated supplies would make 65,000 cases available'a week. The comparative pre-war figure at this time of the year was about 40,000 cases. As the year advanced the quantities released would naturally decrease. ,