to collect monthly retail prices on canned 

 tuna, in some 31 stratified cities through- 

 out the United States. We have not yet 

 had an opportunity to adequately analyze 

 these figures, but they are available to 

 any of you who wish to make such an anal- 

 ysis. 



As mentioned earlier, we also have 

 the contract with the Bureau of Census to 

 study the ex-packer warehouse distribution 

 patterns of canned tuna. No results are 

 yet available. 



There are also commercial market 

 research facilities available which can 

 provide very good information on retail 

 shelf prices, shelf inches, retail in- 

 ventory and rate of disappearance. In 

 planning our market research program, the 

 Bureau is giving considerable thought to 

 all of these types of studies. 



Another type of study that is being 

 conducted by the Bureau, is consumer 

 motivation research. There is currently 

 a contract with a national market research 

 firm to study the motivations or reasons 

 why homemakers do or do not buy canned 

 tuna, salmon and sardines. This study is 

 being conducted in Boston, Detroit, 

 Birmingham, and Orangeburg County, South 

 Carolina. The interviewing involved in 

 the study has now been completed and 

 tabulation is underway. We expect to 

 release the completed report late in 1959. 



Another phase of our continuing mar- 

 ket research and analysis involves the 

 publication of Commercial Fisheries Outlook . 

 This quarterly publication contains an 

 analysis of the market, demand, and supply 

 conditions expected to exist for the prin- 

 cipal species. Tuna is one of the featured 

 items. This publication has widespread 

 distribution throughout the producing, 

 processing and distributive trades, as well 

 as through allied trades such as the banks, 

 warehouses, trade associations, and others 

 concerned with the marketing of fishery 

 products . 



One of 'our most productive programs 

 has been in the field of home economics. 

 To back up a great number of our other 

 programs, and so that our home economists 

 and fishery marketing specialists in the 

 field may have the benefit of current, 

 accurate, and useful data on the uses of 



SCHOOL LUNCH DEMONSTRATION 

 COVERAGE 1946-1959 



Figure 8. 



fishery products, we operate three test 

 kitchens in the country; one in Seattle, 

 one in Pascagoula, and our main test 

 kitchen in College Park. These are 

 staffed by a group of professional home 

 economists and dieticians who split their 

 time between test-kitchen work and field 

 demonstrations. Emphasis is placed on the 

 development, publication and distribution 

 of kitchen tested recipes because of the 

 great need for this material on the part 

 of home economists, dieticians, homemakers, 

 institutional managers and the general food 

 trade. Special recipes are developed, in 

 homemaker and institutional quantities, for 

 use in the special tuna and other promo- 

 tional programs. The Service-produced fish 

 cookery card files for use in the nation's 

 school lunch rooms contain eleven recipes 

 for using tuna, eight for California sar- 

 dines and five for mackerel. Recipes are 

 also developed for use of the Food Service 

 Division of the Army and Air Force, and the 

 Quartermaster Food and Container Institute 

 for the Armed Forces. Another feature is 

 the development of recipes which are re- 

 leased "biweekly to the newspapers, and 

 radio and television for distribution to 

 the household consumers. 



With respect to actual contact with the 

 consumer, both household and institutional, 

 we have found that fish cookery demonstra- 

 tions by our home economists and marketing 

 specialists are one of the most effective 

 means of stimulating interest in all fishery 

 products and for the purposes of this dis- 

 cussion, canned tuna. 



Our demonstrations are conducted on 



92 



