HIGH EGG PRICES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 4 May 1938, Page 7

HIGH EGG PRICES

EFFECT OF EXPORTING PREVIOUS PEAK VALUES (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Local consumers have had cause during the past week or so to sympathise with the Dunedin public in the cost of eggs, the wholesale price in Wellington being equal to the retail price in Dunedin. Inquiries to-day from the Internal Marketing Department revealed that the egg market this year lias been one ol" the most difficult ever experienced. April and May are the months when eggs are in the shortest supply, but ths year the arrangements to meet the position were somewhat thrown out of gear by the unusually line weather towards the end of March and early last month which kept one supply considerably above the customary level for the period after the requirements of the local market had been provided for. The surplus was exported with the result that the market, more or less, was caught on the hop. Prices went up so high that people started murmuring that eggs had never been so costly before.

Reference to the records, however, shows A grade eggs last year were 2s 9Jd a dozen, and the lowest AprilMay quotation during the depression was 2s 2Jd in 1934. Last year's maximum was also the maximum in 1931, but the previous year the top price was 3s sd,' except for a rise to 3s lOd in 1927. The top price from 1924 to 1928 was constant at 3s 4d. In 1922, a slump year, it was as low as 2s lOd, but the previous year it went up to 4s 3d and in 1920, the record for postwar years was reached at 4s 6d. In addition to the shortage of supply, the price has been forced up this season by the increased demand, resulting from greater public spending power.