28 
BULLETIN" 1442, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
In most of the stores, data were not available for determining the 
proprietors' net investments in their respective businesses. It so 
happens that interest on both owned and borrowed capital in the 
retail meat trade is not usually an item of large significance, so that 
expense is little influenced by its being included or excluded. It is 
believed that an estimated percentage of 0.5 per cent for carry 
stores and 0.7 per cent for delivery stores will be found to be close 
approximations of the average interest charges. These percentages 
apply only to the average figures for the groups and not to the 
stores within the various volumes of sales groupings in each class of 
store. 
On the basis of this understanding of the terms profit and loss, 
which implies total return to proprietors exclusive of salaries, the 
distribution of profits and losses in the 129 individual retail meat 
stores for 1923 is shown in Table 8. The proprietors of 6 of these 
stores incurred a loss of 3 per cent or greater, in 22 stores the losses 
were between 2.99 and 0.01 per cent and in 39 stores the profits lay 
between and 2.99 per cent. Thirty-five proprietors made profits 
between 3 and 5.99 per cent, 19 between 6 and 8.99 per cent, 6 be- 
tween 9 and 11.99 per cent, and 2 made over 12 per cent. 
Table 8. — Individual retail meat markets grouped by rates of profit and 
loss, 1923 
[Losses and profits in percentages of net sales] 
Profit and loss groups * 
Number 
of stores 
Profit and loss groups 1 
Number 
of stores 
6 
22 
39 
35 
19 
9 per cent to 11.99 per cent ... ... . 
6 
—2.99 per cent to —0.01 per cent... 
2 
Total 
129 
1 Percentages preceded by a minus (— ) sign indicate losses. 
The average profit for 129 individual retail meat stores was 3.01 
per cent of sales for 1923. The average profit for stores in the carry 
class was 3.24 per cent, for stores of the limited-delivery class, 
2.29 per cent, and for stores of the unlimited-delivery class, 3.23. 
In profit carry stores, the profit percentage was 4.36, in profit limited- 
delivery stores 3.50, and in profit unlimited-delivery stores it was 
4.94. (See Table 4.) 
The low profit figures in the limited-delivery group were occa- 
sioned by the fact that these stores evidently expected to compete 
with carry stores in the extent of gross margin and yet found it 
necessary to incur some of the expense incurred because of furnish- 
ing service in excess of that rendered by carry stores. The additional 
cost of this service was not accompanied by a sufficiently large in- 
crease in gross margin to maintain the rate of profit enjoyed by 
carry stores. A lower rate of profit was the result. 
Practically no relation was found between the profit and loss 
percentages and volumes of net sales. In other words, the return, 
exclusive of proprietor's salary, had no relation to the size of busi- 
ness. (Table 9.) The 129 individual retail meat markets were 
arranged according to the number of stores occurring in varying 
