NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3305, 4 June 1931, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE

MARKETING IN NORTH OF ENGLAND. INTERESTING PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN. For years spasmodic efforts have been made to enlarge the sphere of distribution in England of New Zealand’s exportable produce, especially butter, cheese and meat; and the. endeavours have only been partially successful. Many and many a time, especially at farmers’ meetings, questions have been asked, and the hope expressed, that those responsible for marketing our exports would concentrate more on selling to the huge masscs of peoplo in the industrial contres of the North of England and in Scotland. Now it seems, there is a publicity campaign in the principal newspapers of that area to bung more fully under the notice of the consumers there the excellencies of New Zealand’s primary products. . A friend has forwarded an advisement clipped from one of the Manchester daily papers, wherein the following statement is attractively set out, with the main lines in large black type:— “ The good ship * Surrey ’ is coming to Manchester laden with good things for you The s.s. ‘ Surrey arrives in he Manchester Ship Canal this week-end with a great cargo of good things from New Zealand. The C.W.S. are taking a large part of the cargo for Co-operators including many tons of meat, butter and cheese. Co-operative societies will benefit by these Empire products. This great cargo of Empire produce is the first direct consignment of New Zealand butter, cheese and meat, as consigned by the New Zealand Produce Association, a farmers’ association which is allied to the C.W.S. > After its voyage half-way round the world, this New Zealand produce will be on sale at all Co-operative Societies in the North-west of England. Ask for C.W.S. Empire Butter at Co-op. shops.” The C.W.S. is, of course, the Cooperative Wholesale Sociey, whose representative toured New Zealand two or three years ago in response to expressed desires in many quarters that the shippers of our produce should cooperate more fully with such a vast selling organisation as the C.W.S., and who, after negotiation, found the basis of business unacceptable. It was then stated to farmers that the C.W.S. proposals were rejected because that firm would not deport from its principle of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, for the benefit of its shareholders—a policy or principle that prevented New Zealand dairy factories disposing of their exportable surplus at a price in excess of that paid to the produce of other countries.

Seemingly there has been a change in policy by the C.W.S. That is possible, however unlikely, according to those who have had dealings with the society. But who and what is the New Zealand Produce Association? It is surely not the Dairy Produce Board, or the National Dairy Association, or the Empire Dairies, Ltd. ? The average farmer will come to the conclusion, no doubt, that it is nothing less than another species of middleman to rake off a portion of the profits as between producer and consumer. We have no knowledge on that point. But we do know that the producers’ representatives were very intent upon eliminating all the middlemen, or as many of them as was practicable, to ensure that the producer got in return for his saleable wares all that the consumer would pay.