16 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



neck deep in crushed ice on tables or in display cases were used for 

 holding shucked oysters. Eight stores had no case or table displays 

 and used an ice box with the lid left off during business hours for 

 displaying the products. For holding a reserve supply of fishery 

 products 16 stores used iceboxes. 



^yra'pp^ng 'payer. — Standard white or brown paper was used by 2 

 firms for wrapping all packages of fish, 6 used newspaper only, while 

 16 used first a wrapper of standard bro\m or white paper and an outer 

 \\Tapper of newspaper. Newspaper tends to impart an inky taste 

 and odor to fish, hence the use of standard paper for the first wi'apper. 



Payment oj retail sales, delivery, and advertising. — Retail sales for 

 cash only were made in 10 stores, while 14 extended credit to regular 

 customers. Retail purchases were delivered by 22 stores. For this 

 purpose 11 retailers used bicycles only, 9 used motor trucks only, and 

 2 used both. Advertising was done by 9 stores, of which 6 used the 

 daily papers at intervals, 2 used programs, and one used handbills 

 distributed in the neighborhood of the store. 



Class of trade. — That the retail fish stores cater to the colored 

 population is revealed by the fact that 12 stated 75 per cent or more of 

 their trade was with colored residents. Only 4 catered to the white 

 population, while 8 served customers of both races. Of the 12 stores 

 catering to the trade of the white or mixed population, 7 are situated 

 in the down-town section of the city and 5 in outlying districts. 

 Thus it is seen that Jacksonville has but 5 neighborhood fish stores 

 handling fish every day and catering to the white population. 



Sanitary conditions. — Sanitary conditions in the stores were rated 

 as follows: Excellent, good, fair, poor, or very poor. According to 

 the rating, the sanitary conditions of 8 were good, 7 w^ere fair, 5 were 

 poor, and 4 were very poor. 



Trade during the weel\ — From study it w^as found that the retailer's 

 sales on Monday averaged 8 per cent, Tuesday 7 per cent, Wednesday 

 8 per cent, Thursday 9 per cent, Friday 27 per cent, and Saturday 41 

 per cent of the total week's trade. As will be noted, these stores are 

 open six days to do virtually only two days' business. Considered 

 separately, those stores catering to the white or mixed trade reported 

 making most of their sales on Friday and those catering to the colored 

 trade reported Saturday as their busiest da}''. The majority of the 

 colored working trade is paid on Saturday. 



GROCERY AND MEAT STORES 



Fishery products are handled by a few grocery and meat stores that 

 cater largely to white trade. Usually there is no display, the fish 

 being kept in an icebox that is used only for holding fishery products. 

 Some of these stores handle fishery products every day in the week 

 and some on only one or two days a week. The larger fish usually are 

 viscerated and the smaller are sold in the round. None of the 

 products are wrapped, ready for sale, except fillets of haddock. 



Grocery and meat stores are coming to be one of the important 

 outlets for fresh and frozen fishery products. However, before 

 extensive expansion takes place in this direction operators of these 

 stores must be educated to the proper method of handling these 

 products, so that consumers will be assured of obtaining fish of the 

 best qualit)\ Such education should be supplied by wholesalers 



