U\ 



etauve 



atketift 



i 



Will Reduce 

 Waste 



"The Standard Braakfatf (or Millions of Consumers is Bacon and Eggs." 



/Jl HAS been estimated that 25 

 Ifl per cent of the perishable food 

 \^J supply of the United States is 

 lost annually through waste and spoilage. 

 This startling statement is nude by the 

 authors of a recent University of Ten- 

 nessee bulletin. When the cost of pro- 

 ducing food products is taken into con- 

 sideration, those of us who are charged 

 with helping producers solve their mar- 

 keting problem are not doing our duty 

 if we do not tackle the problem of 

 eliminating this enormous waste. To 

 bring this about will require the united 

 effort of both producers and distributors. 

 Both are responsible for this waste. 



Probably no commodity suffers greater 

 waste than do eggs. Cray and Ferguson 

 of Ohio State University, make the fol- 

 lowing statement in regard to waste in 

 eggs: 



"The reason the consumer fre- 

 quently pays so much more for eggs 

 than the producer receives is that 

 under present marketing conditions 



APRIL. 1937 



By FRANK A. GOUGLER 



it is estimated that from 13 to 15 

 eggs leave the farm for every dozen 

 of eggs reaching the consumer and 

 less than half of the eggs leaving 

 the farm reach the consumer in good 

 condition." 



What does this waste mean to Illi- 

 nois egg producers annually in terms of 

 dollars and cents? After all, whether 

 this loss takes place before the producer 

 has turned his eggs over to someone else 

 or in the channels of trade, the producer 

 absorbs the major portion of it in terms 

 of lower prices for all his eggs. The 

 average Illinois producer sells 500 dozen 

 eggs per year. According to Cray and 

 Ferguson, for each dozen sold there are 

 from one to three eggs lost through 

 spoilage before the eggs reach the con- 

 sumer. An average would be two eggs, 

 therefore, the annual loss to an average 

 Illinois producer is 1000 eggs or 831/^ 

 dozens, valued at 25c per dozen is a cash 

 loss of $20.83. 



The 102 counties in Illinois market 



over 100,000,000 dozen eggs annually. 

 Figured on the. same basis as above, the 

 average county loss is $415,000 annually. 

 The Olney district sells annually 18,- 

 000,000 dozen eggs. A two egg loss 

 per dozen in this district amounts to 

 $750,000 annually. And for the state 

 as a whole on its 100,000,000 dozens 

 sales this loss amounts annually to the 

 enormous sum of $4,166,666.50. And 

 yet, this is not all for the above quotation 

 states at the close that "less than half of 

 the eggs leaving the farm reach the con- 

 sumer in good condition." 



The average spread in price on the 

 Chicago market during 1936 between 

 extra firsts and current receipts was ap- 

 proximately two cents. Half of Illinois 

 egg sales can be classed as those reaching 

 the consumer in poor condition and sell 

 for two cents less which amounts an- 

 nually to another $1,000,000 waste. It 

 should be remembered that all these sec- 

 ond grade eggs could have been first 

 grade with proper production and hand- 

 ling practices. Lippincot, formerly of 

 the poultry department, Kansas State 

 Agricultural College, says: 



"It is possible to market eggs that 

 are more than 95 per cent extra firsts 

 by observing a few precautions." 



31 



I 



