A Pantry Panic

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 618, 21 March 1929, Page 8

A Pantry Panic

Final Crop Heavy—Shortage of Jars

AUCKLAND housewives are perturbed. They are short ot' fruit-preserving jars and cannot use to advantage one of the heaviest fruit seasons in 20 years. This is not the fault of the glass manufacturing works at Auckland, where the jars are made. for. had the orders been placed in time, double and treble the market requirements could have been turned out.

HUNGRY man is an angry man — that is proven long since—but a housewife deprived of her preserving jars makes the home simply a cauldron of infelicity. Add to this ferment one grain of grave suspicion against the man who makes the jars, stir weli. and a whole industry is damaged. This seed of suspicion against the ability of the local manufacturer to fill current requirements was sown in the minds of many Auckland housewomen last week, when door-to-door explanations were made by grocery salesmen upon the shortage of jars.

When the fruit season began there was indications merely of a good crop to come. Naturally nobody anticipated the phenomenal output which eventually was registered—particularly in the northern district and supplies of preserving jars were ordered upon a good average season in prospect. Last week the stores in the city ran out of jars, and now there is not one to be procured. No wonder, therefore, that housewives are annoyed! Jars for preserving fruit are made at Auckland. They are part of a growing New Zealand industry founded here seven years ago with Australian capital. Just now the works are closed down. Why, then, someone asks, cannot storekeepers ring up and order new jars to he sent around? Madam; to make the few jars you require the glassworks would have to

spend several thousands of pounds in two weeks’ work preparing the plant. The machinery would run for less than a week, return to the company about £SOO in production value, and then stop until the mid-winter, when the orders for next season will be considered. But if vour merchant-sup-plier liad placed his orders at the beginning of the season the glassworks could have turned out enough to carry you through this season and next year as well.

OVER-PRODUCED FOR STOCK The position, simply, is this: The Australian Glass Manufacturers at Penrose received normal orders toward the end of last year, and when this demand was met, they over-pro-duced by about 75 per cent, simply to keep the men on and to have a few thousand gross of jars in stock in case of a shortage. The demand has been so great, however, that the extra 75 per cent, was quickly absorbed and further supplies sought. But in the meantime the glassworks, having no further orders, had closed down the furnaces, necessitating the running off of all the molten glass. To relight them and prepare the plant for operation would occupy from a fortnight to three weeks. Moreover, every time the furnaces are extinguished they have to be completely rebuilt befor use —at a very heavy cost. It is easy, therefore, for even the fnost irate housewife to realise the economic futility of such a move for a small order. During the season the factory made 1,006,848 jars for fruit preservation —nearly one jar for every man, woman and child in the Dominion. It could easily have made 2,000,000 had the orders been placed.

SUPPLY FROM AUSTRALIA The few hundred gross required for the immediate market must now be brought from overseas. They can be transported from Australia within the week, at a price slightly higher than the local jar. To get them from America would occupy four or five weeks. The former course is being adopted by some of Auckland’s merchants. Now, who is to blame for this shortage of jars? The glassworks cannot be chastised because they did not receive the orders, the merchant could not be expected to anticipate the fruitgrowers* abnormal output, and the responsibility can hardly be fixed upon the grower himself; what has he to do with it? Nor yet can the housewife take any of the blame, for it is not her fault that her fruit lies rotting in its cases, and her winter preserves are numbered among the season’s dead hopes. Meanwhile it is well that she should know that New Zealand industry can do the job, and, if foresight is exercised next year, the fruit will be preserved and on the shelves before the winter sets in. As it is, the local works achieved something by their enterprise in over-producing in case of an emergency shortage.