FREE APPLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 March 1943, Page 3

FREE APPLES

DISTRIBUTION TO SCHOOLS. TO BE MADE THIS WEEK. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. All schools throughout the Dominion will receive their first consignment of free apples this week for distribution to the pupils. In co-operation with the Health Department and the Education Department, the Internal Marketing Division supplies and dispatches apples to all schools. “The Government has decided that school children will receive their one apple daily during the flush of the season as well as providing full sup-' plies for the local market,” said the Minister of Marketing, Mr Barclay, in an interview last night. “In some schools there was an apparent oversupply during certain periods last year, but this year’s quantities have been reduced to ensure strictly one apple a day, to the nearest case. “Heavy quantities of popular eating varieties are now coming forward and will be relished by the children, and the low prices on the markets certainly have the effect of enabling everyone to enjoy full quantities of apples once again. These apples are being sold by the Internal Marketing Department at from 4s to 6s 6d a case. As they cost the department about 6s a case, plus freight, insurance and overhead, charges bringing the total cost up to nearly 9s a case, it is easy for any fair-minded person to see that the public are getting this fruit at very much below cost. The flush of the season has now arrived, and for the next two or three months the great bulk of the apples will be sold at these prices.”