r, I, K .\ N T N (J S T N 



15 



(' V h T U R E 



Skctkmukr, 1922 



THE MERCHANDISING OF HONEY 



AT a li (■ 1 (1 

 meeting of 

 New Y rk 

 b e e k e e pers at 

 Venice C e n t er, 

 Aug. 4, George 

 B. Howe, speak- 

 ing of the higli- 

 ly important sub- 

 ject of honey 

 selling, hit the nail squarely on the head 

 when he said the whole situation would be 

 taken care of if each honey producer asked 

 liimself the question, ''Am 1 my brother's 

 keeper?" No producer c;ui afford to over- 

 look the fact that liis neighbor has the 

 right to sell his honey at a fair price. No 

 producer can ignore his neighbor and live 

 unto hiiuself alone. 



The rail and coal strikes liave created dis- 

 trust and unrest on the part of merchants, 

 resulting in a temporary lull in the buying 

 of everything except staple articles of food. 

 Since the per capita consumption of honey 

 a year is still around two pounds, honey 

 comes in the class of luxuries, and mer 

 chants are showing an unwillingness to stock 

 it as they ordinarilj^ do at this time of the 

 year. They wish to wait until some of these 

 uncertainties are cleared up. 



For fear that this temporary condition 

 may cause some producers to grow panicky 

 and to offer their honey at a price unfair to 

 themselves and manifestly unfair to their 

 neighbors, this article is written. This is 

 not a time to fly into a senseless panic; this 

 is not a time for alarm over the sale of 

 this year 's honey crop to the extent of 

 dumping the honey upon an unwilling mar- 

 ket at a price near or below actual cost. 

 This is a time for calm reflection and for 

 constructive, consistent and continuous ef- 

 fort on the part of producers towards in- 

 creasing the consumer demand for this saf- 

 est and most delicious of all sweets. On the 

 producers themselves a grave responsibility 

 now rests. Mistakes, that in normal times 

 might pass almost unnoticed, will now prove 

 costly. Errors in carrying out the princi- 

 ples of true salesmanship will now react 

 with telling emphasis against the very life 

 of the whole industry. 



Retail, Wholesale and Jobbing Prices. 



Too many original producers of food of all 

 kinds, incUiding honey, through ignorance 

 or carelessness, often forget one of the old- 

 est laws known to trade, the legitimate dif- 

 ference in the retail, wliolesale and jobbing 

 selling prices. It seems hard to believe and 

 yet many cases liave been reported of bee- 

 keepers selling a (juantity of honey to all 

 the grocers in a town, ;ind then proceeiling 

 to peddle lione.v in llie same packages af 

 tlie same price to tliese grocers' customers 

 in the same town. No more flagrant viola- 

 tion of the princi]iles of salesmanslii]) could 

 be made. 



Tlie liirger the (|uan1ity sold of .'iny ilcin 

 tlie lower llie ])ri('(' can be ]i(»r item; so, tlie 



ArT Analysis of the Costs of Dis- 

 tribution. Ho'w Beekeepers Can 

 Help by Selling Locally 



By H H. Root 



greater the vol- 

 ume sold, the 

 smaller the dis- 

 counts can be to 

 the wholesale 

 and jobbing 

 trade. In other 

 words, the great- 

 er the turnover, 

 the less differ- 

 ence there is between wliolesale and retail 

 prices. 



Take for example an article which sells 

 in great volume — granulated sugar. The 

 turnover is extremely large, as proven by 

 the per capita consumption of 94 pounds of 

 sugar in a year. Because of the volume 

 handled the discount can be relatively small; 

 in one particular case sugar Avas retailing at 

 •tS.OO per cwt., wholesaling at $7.65 and job- 

 bing at $7.30. The retailer in this case was 

 making only ^-j cent per pound — about i.'^'/f . 

 A well-known breakfast food, retailing at 

 $4.30 a case, wholesaled for $3.65 a case. The 

 grocer made 65 cents on a case, or a little 

 over 15%. 



A widely advertised table syrup retailed at 

 $3.30 a case. It wholesaled for $2.75, the 

 difference being 55c on a case, or 16%%. 



Evaporated milk that retailed for $4.80 

 wholesaled at $4.00, the grocer, therefore, 

 making 80c on a case. Here again the dif- 

 ference was 16%%. 



On an article not enjoying so large a sale, 

 preserves, the retail price was $3.00, the 

 wholesale $2.40, the difference, 60c, amount- 

 ing to 20%. 



The figures given above are not intended 

 to be taken as an average, but are merely 

 specific instances of well known foods on 

 the market, no attempt being made to as- 

 certain all of the i^ackages in each separate 

 line to determine what the average is. 



Without stopping to go further with these 

 illustrations, let us now turn to honey, con- 

 fining our attention first to comb honey. 

 According to the United States Government 

 Market Reports, the price of comb honey 

 to retailers, that is, the wholesale price, 

 varies considerably, as might be expect- 

 ed, owing to the locality, distance from 

 market, and the quality of the honey. 

 Take the wholesale price, for example, of 

 $4.80 for a 24-section case, reported foi' 

 the East Central and North Central states 

 ill the August Gleanings. This is 20 cents 

 jier section. That honey may be retaile 1 at 

 25 cents a section, or $6.00 a case, the dif- 

 ference between the wholesale alid retail 

 liiice being 5c j)er section, in other words 

 20%' of the retail price. (Confusion some 

 times arises over what is meant by such (lis 

 count. This 5(- means that the retail price 

 is 25'/'f above the wliolesale price, but it 

 also means that the wholesale price is 20% 

 under the retail price — in otlier words the 

 retailer is making 20% of his selling price 

 or 250', on his purchasing price.) 



There is a great variation in the retail 

 price of comb honey of practically the s;iine 



