I COMPANY MEETING
SMITH'S POTATO CRISPS
CONTINUED SUCCESS SIR HERBERT MORGAN'S SPEECH
THE thirteenth ordinary general meeting of Smith's Potato Crisps (1929), Ltd., was held on June 3rd in London.
Sir Herbert Morgan, K.B.E. (the chairman), in the course of his speech, said: We are proposing the same dividend as last year and also the same cash bonus. This fact I have no doubt you will accept as the best proof that can be offered of the continued success of your company, which yearly grows from strength to strength. The strength of our position is very conclusive proof of the value of our company to the community.
While we have been subject to limitations I should like to place on record that because of the essential and highly concentrated food value of our product, the many Government departments we are concerned with have treated us with fairness and justice. They are helpful to those deserving help. Your board—and we feel the shareholders as well—are proud of a company which has created a national article of diet, the value of which is such that it plays a more important part in these critical times than ever before, in assisting to feed the people.
It must be remembered that Smith's Crisps, compared to the ordinary potato, are more nutritious and produce more heat and energy. Smith's Potato Crisps are 92 per cent. solid food—the ordinary boiled potato 18 per cent. Crisps contain 33 per cent, of fats owing to the line oil in which they are cooked. All the mineral salts are preserved, encased in oil—and remember, our Crisps do not fatten. Not only are they supreme in value as food, but their nature is such that they exactly suit the lives of millions of people living under war conditions.
UNIVERSAL DEMAND
We believe that we have one of the greatest co-operative kitchens in the country, enabling us to play an important part in supporting the Government's policy of communal feeding, as well as making a substantial contribution towards fuel economy. This nation-wide organisation and distribution have enabled us to rush into blitzed towns anything from 20,000 to 50,000 packets of nourishing and essential food within a few hours.
Our consumers represent every section of the public, particularly His Majesty's Forces and the British workers. The Army, Navy, Air Force and the British workers deserve very special consideration in everything concerning their food. They represent the energy, skill and determination of the nation. If I may express a very personal view, I believe that the mass of the workers of this country, while welcoming direction and a reasoned presentation of the necessity for their own individual output, are sometimes over-preached to. Most of the urges which have been applied to the stimulation of greater output are accepted by the vast majority of men and women with enthusiasm. They must not be deadened and confused by too many exhortations from too many sources for too many purposes.
So far as our own staff is concerned, the full knowledge of the purpose they serve in producing our particular form of food for those engaged in the war effort, gives them all the incentive they need. They like to feel they are serving—and believe they are serving—a useful, necessary and national cause. In this difficult year they have continued to put all they know into their work.
A HOME-GROWN PRODUCT
To us, it is cause for pride that the potato which we produce as Smith's Potato Crisps not only is a home-grown product, but is largely grown by ourselves in the wonderfully fertile soil of the Eastern Counties. As you know, not only have we our own farms of upwards of io,000 acres, which make an important contribution to our particular product, but we are also growing under contract potatoes on large areas of the finest farming land in England. Naturally, it will be understood that our estate which is administered under the most scientific principles is not limited to the growing of potatoes. It also makes a very substantial contribution to the country's food supplies in wheat, barley, oats, sugar beet and live stock—pigs, sheep, and cattle.
In the history of the company we have always had full support from the hundreds of thousands of distributors who supply our Crisps and we again thank them. Our old allies, the Licensed Trade, carry on in face of increasing difficulties, but maintain their position as valuable servants of the public. It is a matter of anxiety to satisfy all the demands made on us for Crisps, and we regret that supplies are not sufficient to meet them.
The founder of the business, Mr. Frank Smith, has temporarily lost Mr. Cyril Scott's assistance in sales activities and has many extra burdens to carry. His cheerfulness is unimpaired and he brings courage and resource to bear on new problems as they occur.
The report was unanimously adopted.
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