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Provision for Winter The Division is exploring means to increase the winter supply of eggs. The United States and South Africa have largely succeeded by taking off the market vast quantitiesof eggs during the summer peak production and placing them in chiller for consumption during the winter months. The Division has been carrying out tests along the same lines. _ Unfortunately, cool storage of the necessary type is limited both in locality and condition. Last year 86,000 dozen eggs were chilled at Auckland and made availableto shipping and Armed Forces from April to July. Small quantities were also placed on Wellington and Auckland markets. Thirty thousand dozen eggs chilled at Christchurch were used mainly for hospitals and restaurants in Wellington. A small quantity was also sent to the West Coast. In every instance a satisfactory report was received. This coming year the Division is again endeavouring to chill 120,000 dozen at Auckland for use on the civilian market during the winter months, and Christchurch is also filling all available suitable chill space. If these eggs prove as satisfactory as is expected, it is in the interest of both industry and public to have further chilling facilities provided. The alternatives are either chilled eggs or few eggs during the period of low production. The manufacture of egg-pulp has always been the main means for taking surplus eggs off the market during the peak production period. The Division was able this year to arrange with egg floors to manufacture a considerably increased quantity of e §g"P u lp> thereby reducing the importation of Australian egg-pulp for the coming year. Importations of processed eggs from Australia during the past four years are as follows : Dozen Equivalent. 1942-43 .. .. .. 2,722,020 1943-44 .. .. .. 2,286,732 1944-45 .. .. .. 2,662,107 1945-46 .. .. .. 2,000,000 (estimated maximum). These importations were made because manufacturers arid pastrycooks cannot continue their businesses without eggs or egg equivalent. Though the Division's policy of importing has been criticized in some quarters, it cannot be said to have held back production, since all eggs produced can be sold. Organization TV hen the Division s primary task in egg marketing was transferred by war conditions from that of protecting producers to that of providing an equitable distribution of the eggs available over the Dominion, the procedure arranged in the original 1940 Egg Marketing Regulations of creating licensed egg floors in order to relieve the market of surpluses was employed in order to "ration out" the smaller quantities. In addition to the licensed egg floors in the marketing areas, additional floors of an emergency nature were set up in the larger provincial towns where production or consumption warranted this procedure. The floors so established have given producers an organized outlet for their produce and could, if the industry so decided, be continued for this purpose after the war. Since the last annual report, Gisborne and Hamilton have been declared emergency areas, bringing the number of floors established under the Egg Marketing Regulations 1940 and the Egg Marketing Emergency Regulations 1942 to sixteen. The distributors operating in each marketing area a,re still required under regulation to pool the proceeds of the sale of eggs at current ruling prices according to Price Order and to pay out to the producer at prices agreed to by the Division. Surpluses, as required, are transferred from individual pool accounts to the National Egg Pool Account, from which funds are made available to the industry for approved purposes. Local pool balances, in addition, act as a cushion against losses on a falling market. All accounts are subject to audit, and Tinder these conditions, therefore, the supplier of

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