MARKETING 



83 



Farm Credit Administration and the New York State College 

 of Agriculture. The report of the study, which is to be con- 

 tinued, is preliminary in nature, but some of the findings to 

 date are worthy of note. 



Fruit and vegetable stands are the most important type of 

 retail outlet for fruits, but pushcart or wagon hucksters lead 

 for apples. See Table 8. 



The relationship of the quantity of apples sold, both East- 

 ern and Western, to the annual sales of all fruits and vege- 

 tables and to total sales of all commodities by 370 independent 

 retail grocers is set forth in Table 9. In stores doing a busi- 

 ness of $30,000 or less annually, fruits and vegetables account 

 for about one-third the total sales. 



Fruit and vegetable stands sell fruit and vegetables almost 

 exclusively. Table 10 classifies 976 such stands on the basis 

 of gross sales and the quantities of Eastern and Western apples 

 sold. In general about % of the total quantity of apples sold 

 are Western apples. 



It is usually considered that the size of the family income 

 is the chief factor in determining the consumption of fruits. 

 This is doubtless true when purchasers are free from the influ- 

 ence of sales-promotion activities. Table 11 does indicate that 

 there is a relationship between family income as measured by 

 rentals charged in the area in which the retail outlet is located 

 and the sales of apples and other fruits. Note that sales of 

 all fruits by independent grocers increased rapidly as incomes 

 increased, but that the pushcart and huckster sales were heavi- 

 est in the low-income areas. When the high-income groups 

 buy apples from pushcarts, they take the Western apples. 



There appear to be some preferences on the basis of nation- 

 ality in the purchase of apples. Stores catering predominantly 

 to Jewish trade constituted 25 percent of the retail outlets but 

 sold 37 percent of the apples and 35 percent of six other fruits. 

 Italian customers predominating in 15 percent of the outlets 

 purchased 7 percent of the apples, Germans 5 percent and 

 4 percent respectively. 



