COOPERATIVE CITRUS-FRUIT MARKETING AGENCY. 41 
evaluating the marketing services of the exchange, sales policies and 
practices can not be considered apart from other activities of the 
organization. The work done to establish and maintain, a standard 
dependable product; the activities of the advertising, field, and traf- 
fic departments; the by-product plants and the Fruit Growers Supply 
Co. have all served to strengthen the organization. 
The sales departments of the exchange have established a system 
whereby a product that was formerly marketed speculatively and 
haphazardly is now distributed uniformly in accordance with approved 
merchandising methods. This has been accomplished by the devel- 
opment, first of aU, of a system of comprehensive market and pro- 
duction reports. With this information as a guide, the distribution 
of the existing supply can be made in accordance with a carefully 
worked out plan. Guesswork is eliminated to a large extent, and 
the problems which must be met from day to day become clear-cut. 
The keynote of the marketing policy of the exchange is uniform dis- 
tribution based upon accurate knowledge of supply and demand 
conditions. 
STIMULATION OF CONSUMER DEMAND. 
As has been previously shown, the disposal of the constantly 
increasing crop of California citrus fruit made necessary the develop- 
ment of new markets, as well as an increase in the consuming capacity 
of established markets. The account given of the advertising depart- 
ment summarizes the more important methods adopted to increase 
consumption of oranges and lemons. These methods are based upon 
a study of the consumers' requirements, and for that reason appeal to 
an observer as being eminently sound. As the next step, the require- 
ments of the retailer have been studied, and from the knowledge 
already gained efforts are made to improve retailing conditions. The 
retailer is shown how to display oranges and lemons in such a way 
as to appeal to his customers; he is shown, also, that a quick turn- 
over on a relatively low margin of profit is to his advantage. At the 
same time new channels of consumption, such as orangeade and 
lemonade made from fresh fruit, are sought and developed. 
One of the difficult problems in the sale of citrus fruit has been to 
dispose satisfactorily of the extra large and small sizes. Consumers 
prefer the medium sizes, and the "off sizes" fail to move and soon 
clog the channels of trade for all oranges. When the whole crop 
shows a tendency to run to large or to small sizes, promoting with 
the trade the advantages of large or small oranges, as the case may 
be, has modified the consumer demand to a consideraable extent. 
An increasingly effective method of facilita tin g the sale of these sizes 
has been through the stimulation of demand for fresh-fruit orange 
and lemon drinks at soda fountains. Off sizes contain as much juice 
of equal quality as the more preferred sizes and are satisfactory for 
fountain use. An unexpected obstacle was met when the develop- 
ment of this market was first begun. Dispensers disliked to prepare 
drinks from fresh fruit, particularly at rush periods, because 01 the 
unavoidable untidiness and the time required to prepare such drinks 
with a small extractor. Synthetic substitutes of all kinds were used 
by soda fountains and a demand for fresh-fruit drinks was not 
encouraged. 
