GRADING AND MARKING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 12

GRADING AND MARKING

FRUIT AND PRODUCE AT HOME GREAT REFORM IN MARKETING British Official Wireless. RUG BIT, Tuesday. The Government has appointed a committee to supervise the carrying out of the Act which was recently passed providing for the grading and marking of fruit and agricultural produce. The chairman of the committee is Lord Darling, the well-known former judge. The other members are Sir F. A. Jones, legal adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture, and Sir William Peat, an eminent chartered accountant. The committee will have power to authorise the use of a prescribed mark, and to suspend or revoke the right to use it in individual cases if necessary. It will watch the general working of the scheme and advise the Government on changes which experience may prove to be necessary. A trade committee has been set up to deal with applications. The national mark system is regarded as a great reform in the marketing of Britishgrown produce. The mark which will identify produce as British and which will guarantee a specified standard, will be a map of England with a circle enclosing the Union Jack. It will be applied at the outset to fruit, beginning with apples and pears, from September 1. It will be extended to eggs next January and later on to other forms of English farm produce. The mark will be accompanied by a number and by other indications of the identity of the producer, so that complaints may be followed up. The scheme is a voUintary one, but if goods do not conform with the standard specified, a purchaser will be entitled to recover damages for a oreach of warranty or a breach of contract.