Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-13
MARKETING EXPERTS HAIL LOVELY PEANUT
AS MEANS TO GREAT WEALTH FOR GEORGIA

Glcil Ebs = 40 ~ RCA INV ~NAASAS SNiNNe
digestible. 1t contains 1900 calories
to the pound, which makes the raisin
seem puny.
I Yet, he declared, the average price
obtained by the producer during the
past ten years has been atleast IL
cents less than the cost of produc-
ton, and the more peanuts the farm
er has grown. the more money he
has lost.
After describing the difficulties
into which the Virginia CAROLINA
peanut cooperative fell year ago
because of a bad management and
pointing out that no other co.opera-
tive could ever reasonably make the
same mistakes in the light of that
experience, he told. how when he
took charge of the association he
set about the first principles of cor
Erect marketing.
Develops Consumer Demand
Arranging With leading brokers
to take the bulk of the peanuts on
hand for sale to cleaners or millers,
he set about developing consumer
demand. Peanuts, he said, are sold
in unattractive paper sacks, mainly
at baseball games, circuses and by
street vendors. They sell at the
70 nf Nd II
they are of the poorest peanuts pro
duced.
Making up attractive bags for 100
pound lots, he al|c put up one pound
packages, and placed small adver-
tisements in two magazines of
national circulation Offering four
pounds for dollar From two in
sertions of the advertisement, the
association sold $4,000 worth of
peanuts into American homes and
received IS per cent repeat orders.
He then enlisted the interest of the
management of 100 chain stores
with headquarters at Norfolk. Aft
er much effort they were persuaded
to display the packages of peanuts
and on the first day 600 pounds were
sold in one store at 25 cents pound.
This demonstrated that people
would buy good peanuts at a price
lower than they had ever paid but
which would give the producer
four times the best price he had
ever obtained.
Mr. Defender declared that go
per cent of the 100000 retailers in
rs
always in stock, and less than 5
per cent of them carry peanuts.
With proper merchandising by
the cooperating producers these
100000 retailers will sell peanuts at
a steady rate which will insure d
stable price and a fair profit for the
producer. 1t has been done with an
inferior product in the case of the
California walnut and almond, he
said, and to do it with the peanut
of the southern states is the easiest
sales problem he could ask for.
The Virginia association, small as
it is in proportion to the total num-
Der of growers, and suffering
great setback. as it did, through
mistakes at the start. now is selling
a large quantity OF peanuts to the
public at 25 cents. pound, one.
half of which goes to the producer
as his price. And this is four times
what he has been getting year in
and year out.
Mr. Defenders practical talk
made a profound impression.
SapirO's Address
1t followed a Enthusiastically
brilliant address, by Mr.. Sapiro in
the morning in which the counselor
of Ga cooperative associations
preached eloquently the gospel of
collective selling.
Much of Mr.. Sapiro's line of
thought has been presented in The
Journal from time to time. The
theory and practice of the co-opera.
tives has been thoroughly covered
in the VARIOUS articles on the cotton
associations The principles in
brief are to take the production of
the commodity, merchandise it
properly, obtaining an average price
by orderly selling and to return to
the grower his share of profits
which otherwise go to spectators
or unnecessary middlemen.
The purpose is to give the farmer
the share of the consumers dollar
that ought to go to him. That it
can be done has been demonstrated
in a hundred successful associa,
lions. The , California producer
used to get cents of the consum-
er's dollar; now he gets 48 cents of
that dollar and in most cases the
consumer gets more for his dollar
than ever before.
Mr.. Sapiro did, however, paint a
picture Of California as it was be-
fore the rise of the co-operatives on
the right basis that should be men.
toned.
He told how churches were nailed
up and school houses were closed be-
cause the farmers were too poor to
pay preachers and teachers. Women
and children worked in the fields as
they do today in Georgia.
The growers were ruined. They
could not sell their crops for the
cost of tilling the land.
The cO-operatives, rightly organ
lied, rose as a necessity. Now Cali
fornia is d land of prosperity and
COntentment. There are more
schools and more teachers; more
churches and more preachers than
in any other state in the union. The
teachers and the preachers are paid
more than in any other state. There
are fewer children out of the schools
than, in any other state. There are
more miles OF paved roads than in
any other. More is spent for pur
poses of civic education and recrea-
ton and improvement than in any
other. More farm houses are cleo
trio lighted than in any other.
In short, he said, rural California
is happy.
F.. And, being happy and prosperous,
he said, there are no movements of
violence in rural California. There
is no reason for them.
Where the farmer is getting less
than a living he cannot but feel an
anger against the world that finds
expression in surrender or in move
ments of violence.
The cure for this, he continued,
lies in permitting the farmer to get
what he deserves to haVe-a profit