PROFITS TOO HIGH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26545, 21 August 1947, Page 7

PROFITS TOO HIGH

LONDON, PRODUCE RETAILERS GROWERS INSTITUTE DIRECT SELLING N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Kec. 8 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 20. As a protest against the low prices paid for market garden produce ana the high prices in London shops the same produce has passed through the hands of the middlemen, a group of East Grinstead farmers and matket gardeners have organised a direct grower to consumer service which has already had the effect of forcing down retail vegetable prices in the Croydon district by 20 per cent. The farmers sent 12 tons of vegetables by lorry from East Grinstead to Croydon, where volunteer helpers set up a large stall and invited housewives to fix what they considered fair prices. By mid-day 5000 women were besieging the stall, and all supplies had been sold out at prices one-lialf to one-third below the ruling retail prices on barrows and stalls in the neighbourhood. Other retailers immediately protested to the Ministry of Food, but after Ministry officials had visited the growers’ stall and noted the prices ruling they stated that the venture did not infringe official regulations. A silent crowd of angry barrow boys whose stalls had been emptied of cus; iomers by the exodus to the growers' market watched these proceedings Farmers from many parts of the south coast district have offered to support the scheme, and to-day the growers proposed to offer 20 tons of vegetables and fruit. The organisers state that they intend to extend their operations to other parts of London and to organise direct selling on a national basis. The News Chronicle editorially says that, while direct action on ' the lines organised at East Grinstead will not have effect outside a limited area, it has already forcibly drawn attention to the excessive cost of wholesale marketing. It is patently absurd, says the paper, that it should cost six times as much to bring a cabbage from the grower to the purchaser as it does to grow the cabbage. It is difficult to believe that the middleman’s costs can justify these charges, and he certainly does not perform a social service six times more valuable than that of the primary producer.