THE E.M.B.
The Empire Marketing Board were, as one, might expect, very quick to see the possibilities of this form of fruit and vegetable preservation ; and you can buy cans under the guarantee of the mark which ensures not only the quality of the fruit before it was canned, but after a sufficient interval has elapsed to ensure that nothing has gone wrong since. At every turn of what may be called the new marketing you may note how great is the advance due, not to marketing organization, but chiefly to the invention of handy and cheap containers, some to be destroyed after use, some, so to say, permanent. I wrote the other day, for example, about the new jars, specially designed for the National Mark scheme, for the purpose of selling honey. One ingenuity is that the screw tops fit jars of different capacity. The mention of the nature of the jars has brought enquiries from a number of places and from people interested in buying and selling honey and in preserving it for home consumption. This is a small example from personal experience, that indicates how quickly a new idea can spread abroad. Half the trouble of marketing lies in the ignorance of the consumer ; and, partly owing to this ignorance, the poor pay more for their food than the rich. They have bought, and still buy, thin— and to my taste disagreeable—imported milk solely for the reason that it is readily procurable in small quantities at any hour in easily portable tins. These advantages overcome the essential duty of buying good food or drink at a moderate price. Bad food at a high price is preferred if it is easier to buy. You can now buy most English foods in handy containers : even malt extracts, English flour, milk in less than pint containers, fresh eggs, as well as nearly all English fruits and vegetables in tins. It is the duty of every household caterer to know all about these containers ; and their best source of knowledge is always to ask for National Mark goods.
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