CENTRAL I'ACKISU HOUSES FOR FRUIT 903 



PRACTICABILITY DEMONSTRATED BY INCREASE 



The increasing use of central packing houses in Canada, both 

 by dealers' and farmers' cooperative companies, would seem to 

 prove the practicability of the central packing-house system under 

 a compulsory apple packing law, and should, therefore, prove suc- 

 cessful under Xew York State conditions. The central packing 

 house makes it possible to pack uniformly a larger quantity of 

 fruit under one label and facilitates marketing by enabling the 

 packer or packing company to acquire a reputation for their 

 brand, and to refill repeat orders from satisfied customers before 

 this brand is forgotten. 



In the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, where the central 

 packing-house system is extensively developed, nearly ninety per 

 cent of the fruit grown is packed in central packing houses, either 

 in the packing house of the dealer, or that of a cooperative com- 

 pany, the reason for this being that the better and more uniformly 

 packed fruit from these houses will bring better average prices 

 than orchard packed fruit. 



Now that they have secured through the central packing house 

 the uniform grading of a large quantity of apples to be sold 

 under one label, it is interesting to see bow the fruit growers of 

 Nova Scotia are attacking the question of selling their product, 

 and the further question of securing and utilizing a knowledge of 

 market conditions, which they believe is the third requisite for 

 successful marketing. 



COMBINATION OF PACKING HOUSES 



Several years ago, some thirteen of these central packing houses 

 decided to pack the same grades of fruit, pool it, and sell it 

 through a central organization. The following year thirty-three 

 companies followed this plan, and last year there were forty-three 

 subordinate packing houses that marketed their fruit through the 

 central office of what is now known as the United Fruit Com- 

 panies, Ltd., of Nova Scotia. The central office representing 

 these companies controlled approximately 450,000 barrels of fruit, 

 packed as uniformly as possible by the subordinate packing 

 houses; and, because the company handled so large a quantity 

 of fruit, it was able to accomplish in the way of systematic market- 

 ing what separate companies could not have done. 



