The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1917-02-01
Money Talks
TO
Fruit Growers
Northwestern Fruit Exchange
No. S...Sales Department
TO FRUIT GROWERS :

TO FRUIT GROWERS:
| have told you in a previous talk |
that there are about 10, 600 dealers in |
the United States and Canada who han. |
die fruit and produce in carload lots. |
These dealers constitute the market, |
plus. of course. the foreign trade. Our
first concern, is of course. with the |
domestic trade, though the foreign |
trade is important, too, and needs to be
worked comprehensively. When the
EXCHANGE was first organized, here
was the problem that confronted us :
In order TO get maximum value for this
product, we have got to avail ourselves
of the WHOLE DEMAND. not just
part of it. but ALL OF 1T. This
means that we have got to construct
machinery that will put US in touch
with 10. 600 buyers in this country alone
practically every day in the trading
season. How can we do it? BY trav-
cling statesmen? The answer to that
question was not hard to find and il
was NO. II would require an army of
travellers at a terrific lin fact. prohib-
itive-cost, to cover the whole country
simultaneously. remembering that we
are not selling dead merchandise like
clothing, hats, boots. and shoes. hard
ware. etc., in which line the dealers
buy in the spring for their fall trade,
etc. We are handling perishable line.
in which values fluctuate from day to
day and in which the average buyer
operates with great caution. Hence,
the salesman must be johnny On. the.
spot when the buyer is ready to do
business. How do the other great mar
keting institutions sell their fruit--the
California Fruit Growers Exchange,
the United Fruit Company, etc? Why,
by means of RESIDENT salesmen,
who are on the job the year round. So
far, so good. I've often heard men
talking something like this: ''See what
the California Exchange has done; we
in the Northwest can do the same
thing" That:SOUNDS good, but can
we? Let's compare the positions
Apples are harvested from the trees
in period of about 100 days; citrus
fruit is harvested every day in the
year; apples pass from first to second
hands MOSTLY in a period of about
three months; oranges are sold and
shipped every day in the year. Prunes
and vegetables have still shorter sea-
son. Do you see the point am getting
to? In other words, with tonnage
which is distributed throughout the
whole year, the big citrus organizations
can afford TO maintain, UNASSISTED,
their own branch Office system econom-
ically, all the year round, but even if
one concern controlled all the apples
and other produce grown in the North.
west (Which would be both impossible
and in my judgment undesirable) it
would still be very grave problem
how to maintain really high-class resi-
dent service when we could only keep
the sales forces busy for certain
months. Either they would have to be
idle for the other months and rust and
deteriorate las no salesman can loaf for
several months and be just as good at
the end of that time as be was before),
or else they would have to be dis.
charged, the Offices closed and the
whole organization rebuilt every few
months, which would be an impossible
ity. This problem was tWister, and
unless We in the EXCHANGE had
tackled and solved it successfully, | am
frank to tell you we would never have
started going. We did solve it. how
ever, and in the simplest and most
natual way: simply by the extension of
the cooperative principle from local
to a national basis. 1t was worked out
this way. We knew That, for instance,
there was a section in Texas that grows
Bermuda Onions and ships several cars
to the markets in few weeks In the
early spring. Their stuff requires very
wide distribution. just as ours does,
and they need salesmanship very badly,
but can still less afford to maintain
their own organization. These onions
do not compete with US at all. There
fore, why not interest the Texas onion
shippers in plan to join Us in the es-
tablishment of countrywide resident
sale force? Then there is a big district
in Michigan that ships several thousand
cars of grapes along in August. They
need wide distribution but have very
short season. Why not get them to CO.
operate?
From this thought it was not diff.
crlt to work out succession of fruits
and vegetables that originate in differ.
ent sections of the country that would
mature at different times and by all
joining hands we could enjoy gilt-edged
service in the markets and yet pay
only each his proper share for the cost
of maintenance. Working on this the.
ory, the NORTH AMERICAN FRUIT
EXCHANGE was organized. The
NORTH AMERICAN is simply the
clearing house for SERVICE, IL js the
concern through which the different
interests are joined. II is the SU-
PERINTENDENT OF BRANCHES. to
put it in another way. They employ
the statesmen, bond them (and all our
statesmen are under bonGs). install a
system of accounting and business
practice, supervise them, if need be
discharge and replace them. In other
words, their job is to keep the machin-
cry in first-clsss running order. And
that's all they do for the NORTH.
WESTERN FRUIT EXCHANGE.
There are at present ll9 of these resi-.
dent sales Offices in the sytsem. The
whole country is divided up in terri
tories and one of these resident sales.
men is responsible for working all the
trade in his territory EVERY DAY.
Hence, during our season, the Ex-
changes offerings are placed before all
of the 10000 buyers EVERY DAY.
| shall tell you more about this in
my next talk.
Faithfully yours,
/ ". F. GWIN,