EXPERIMENT STATION BULIiETINS. 375 



Some things required of milk distribution not required for baked goods are 

 as follows: icing the load, early delivery of retail, heavier loads and heavier 

 work, milk left in stores must be iced, return of bottles and cases, breakage of 

 bottles, greater load of containers, equipment, and Sunday delivery. 



From Table No. XII we see that it required about 31 per cent more wagons 

 to distribute approximately the same number of units of milk than it did for a 

 similar number units of baked goods, a unit of milk being equivalent to a 

 quart of milk in value or size. For example, a quart of skinunilk or butter- 

 milk was considered a quart unit, likewise was one-half pint of coffee cream 

 or one-fourth pint of whipping cream. Units of baked goods corresponded 

 very closely to those of milk when the study was started, with a wholesale 

 loaf of bread the same price as a quart of milk, thus making the units com- 

 parable. However, soon after the study was started there was a general 

 slackening in the enforcement of war regulations so that the size of a loaf of 

 bread as well as the price was a variable proposition. To overcome this dif-» 

 ficulty the total value of the load of baked goods was divided by the price of 

 a quart unit of milk to get the number of units of baked goods so that they 

 might become comparable. 



This difference in the number of wagons is not so great when we consider 

 that baked goods is almost entirely wholesale distribution while milk 

 is about one-half wholesale and one-half retail. A short time previous 

 to our study at Kalamazoo, retail delivery of baked goods was practised. 

 There were at that time forty bakery wagons in the city delivering baked 

 goods from door to door much the same as milk is delivered. This was the 

 same number of wagons as was used by the milk distributors of the city at the 

 time the study was made. The eliminating of retail delivery of baked goods 

 took away the consumers service of delivery and put it in the hands of the 

 grocer, at the same cost to the consumer. To put milk on the same system 

 many difficulties are encountered that are not met with in the distribution of 

 baked goods. Milk is a more perishable article and should be used the day 

 it is dehvered, thus making daily delivery a necessity. There is greater cost 

 to the storekeeper in handling milk through the stores because of extra cost 

 of refrigeration, lost bottles, soured milk, etc. The extra cost of handling 

 milk through the stores is sufficient to pay for the extra service of delivery 

 necessary to place the milk daily on the doorstep of the consumer and thus 

 avoid all the necessary labor, duplication of labor, and inconvenience re- 

 quired for each separate individual to fetch his own milk from store to home. 

 As shown by Table XIV the extra cost through the stores would be sufficient 

 to pay for the extra number of wagons and service required for retail delivery. 

 Comparing Tables XII and XIV shows that if all of the cities' milk was de- 

 livered wholesale the minimum number of wagons (Table XIV) required 

 would be much less than is actually required to deliver baked goods. These 

 figures were obtained by dividing the average number of quart units sold per 

 wagon from wagons carrying wholesale milk only into the total number of 

 quart units for the whole city. The average number of quart units per 

 wagon wholesale being taken from Table No. XV. 



