Defects in Marketing System are Cause of Poor Quality Fruit

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26848, 12 August 1948, Page 4

Defects in Marketing System are Cause of Poor Quality Fruit

Amazement and dismay are expressed by the buying public over the extremely .poor quality and size of the apples being retailed at the present time. According to inquiries made by tlie Daily Times these factors arise from two simple causes. One is that the Government opened its selling campaign by setting the price too high, and the other is that so long as the grower is allowed to sell privately the choice and preferred sizes of his crop, and to foist his oversize and undersized lower grade fruit on to The Internal Marketing Division, no scheme could be expected to work. This was the view expressed by Mr ’ H.' A. Newall, a member of the executive of the Otago Retail Fruiterers’ Association, to the Daily Times yesterday.

Gravensteins were the first apples to come on to the market at 22s 9d a case, compared with 8s 6d to 11s last season. The fruit was slow to move, witß the result that the next pip fruit to be ready,' the Cox’s Orange, was held back until the -Gravensteins were cleared. . ’ . In like manner, the Jonathans were held until the Cox’s Orange were disposed of. and then the Delicious crop was held until the Jonathans were gone. Now -the Sturmers are being held until the Delicious are cleared. “ It would have paid the Government to give the Gravensteins away," Mr Newall said. “As it is. we have been ‘ dragging the chain ’ all the season, and considerable wastage has occurred. New pip marketing proposals had been submitted to Cabinet, he added, but he was not in a position to comment on them. He was certain that he voiced the sentiments of the whole of the retail trade in New Zealand and also of the consuming public when he said that any new proposals so far as thd 1 marketing of pip fruit was concerned would be welcomed.

“ The pip fruit season has been a very disappointing one to all concerned,’’ said Mr Newall. “ From its inception to the present time buyers have had to accept fruit in a stale and deteriorating condition, and in many instances lines of fruit have been offered which have come to the end of their life.”

Questioned concerning the reason for the existing conditions, Mr. Newall said that, so far as the sale and distribution of pip fruit were concerned, tlie mistake was made when the department. opened up the new season by fixing such a ridiculously high price. This very considerably retarded sales, and so the market from one end of the country to the other was flooded with Gravensteins of poor quality which should have been disposed of at a much lower price. This would have allowed the Cox’s Orange apples to come to the consumer crisp and of good quality. “The public was asked to accept Cox’s Orange apples in a wasting condition, and this has been carried forward in rotation with each incoming crop,” Mr Newall said-

“Apparently it is part of the policy of the Internal Marketing Division to accept from the grower this undersized fruit of poor quality," he said, “ but I am satisfied that a good deal of this fruit should never, have been accepted by the department from the grower. It would nave been better to

have kept it at the orchards and flavoured the bacon with it.” Mr Newall said he did not wish to place all the responsibility on the officers of the. department. At the same time, he considered that the policy adopted 1 by the Government for the distribution of fruit could be carried out in a profitable manner to all concerned. Something was lacking, however, so far as co-operation between all sections of the industry was concerned. “ I am satisfied that the wholesalers throughout the country, who have a wide experience in the sale of fruit, should have been co-opted and their experierice on the marketing side made use of,” he said. “Their experience would have been iflvaluable to the Government. The Marketing Boafd consists of growers and departmental officers. Neither has any experience on the selling side, so it can hardly be expected that they could successfully market such an enormous quantity of fruit as we have producea * over the last Jew years. “ So far as the retailer is concerned, this is the worst year we have experienced since the Government has taken over the sale and distribution of pip fruit,” Mr Newall continued. “The wholesaler has had to thrust on to the retailer allocations of apples, knowing full well that it was a practical impossibility for him to get a return for his money, but by so doing he has carried out a wonderful job for the 1.M.D.” The views expressed by Mr Newall were endorsed by a wholesaler with whom the Daily Times discussed the matter. This trader stated that in 1941 the I.M.D. inaugurated an extensive advertising scheme, which produced wonderful results. The goodwill it then created with the public, and the goodwill which was created between the wholesaler and the .retailer, it had undone in this one season. “It takes years to build up goodwill,” he stated, “but you can destroy it in -a matter of .days.”