PRICE AND QUALITY OF FISH

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23976, 17 June 1943, Page 6

PRICE AND QUALITY OF FISH

Sir.—l understand that inspectors were appointed in Canterbury to protect the consumers against profiteering and misrepresentation. If any industry needed investigation it is the fish business in Christchurch. To-day fish was purchased for me. Unfortunately it was cooked when presented. It was sold as terekihi (smoked), a piece sufficient for a famine time table for one. It was dog fish (sucker shark species). I have been inclined to think in the past that certain wholesale rings were mainly responsible for the fish famine and exorbitant prices. I still believe it, but I will not blame them for the retailers’ misrepresentation, which should be stopped. The piece tendered to me was purchased for Is 6Jd per lb and was streaked with Condy’s fluid, which answers as a disinfectant for putrefying fish and as a.rapid colour blind.—Yours, etc., H. E. BARNSLEY. May 31, 1943. [The Inspector of Fisheries (Mr M. Hope) said in reply to this letter that shark is sold in shops under the name of flake, and meets with a big demand. But this is one of the most expensive fish on the market and almost double the price of terekihi, and for this reason Mr Hope said he thought it was most unlikely that shark would be sold for terekihi. What is known as “dog fish’’ is never sold in shops as flake or under any other name, and flake is never smoked. Prices for fish, controlled by the Price Tribunal, may be high at present, but could hardly be lower, and he considered that Is 6Jd per lb was a reasonable price for smoked terekihi. The high cost of fishing gear and the shortage of labour and boats were the main causes for the high price of fish. Certain types of nets and lines were now unprocurable, and fishermen had to go on mending old nets, a job which took a considerable time to do.]