The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-01-09

situation IS the WaStage fro
 The situation has been so bad and has been so completely ig- nored by top War Food Admins tration officials that two import ant men have resigned. They are: Andy Current, veteran warehouse man, who came here ill 1941 to set up a warehousing system for foods; and J. s. Salisbury, an ex- pert on the shipping of food. They quit War Food Administra- ton because they considered it's purchasing and storage methods impossible. New head of the sec- tion is Eldon Richardson, whose storage experience was gained with Lever Bros, soap and shortening manufacturers.
 Another reason Current and Salisbury quit was because WFA was ignoring their ominous re- ports concerning leverage" foods, showing huge stocks of food rot ting away in warehouses while newer foods were moved out.
 It. Col. George OImstead told the Mead Committee in Febru- ary, 1944, WFA had only ESQ., 873 pounds of 1941 food in stOr-
 age at that time. However,
 when the warehOusing division
 War Foods checked into only 10 per cent of the WFA ware
 houses, they found over 5000, 900 pounds of l941 food.
 But what has conscientious WFA officials biting their nails is although most food is considered average at from five months to a year, a lot of it doesn't move out of WFA warehouses until after that period. AS a result average stocks now in storage are re- ported as around 3OO,000,0OO lbs. The Mead Committee has been in- vestigating food on hand since 1941, but has passed up the fact it doesn't take four years to spoil some kinds of food and a great deal of food stored in 1943 is now claSsed as leverage.
 EXIT DRIED EGGS
 Last month a WFA agent in Oregon threw 2300 pounds Of dried egg powder off a dock into the sea. It had been sitting in a warehouse for two years-about 18 months longer than necessary for dried egg powder to spoil and begin to smell. The hapless agent, who thought he was doing the agency a favor, got a terrific dressing down - because WFA of ficials were working on a deal" to sell the powder for animal feed. It could be used for ani- mai feed, but that was all.
 Part of the Wastage undoubtedly is due to the natural Wastage of war and may be unavoidable. But in addition War Food officials have failed to T,ake inspections and do not reject a lot of poor quality food.
 In many cases, the Govern
 ment bought millions of pounds
 of eggs. paying good prices
 simply on presentation of a
 < S1ping receipt. The ware
 hOusers who had agreed to store
 the eggs until WFA could
 get them to drying plants im-
 mediateIy began to howl.
 The odor of few rotten eggs can contaminate all the eggs in warehouse - including those stored for private concerns as well as WFA. So the storage people began writing WFA urging disposal of "these putrid eggs." For instance. the Rainier Fruit Co.,, of Yakima, Wash, wrote that practically all the cases in its shipment contained mag gOts or cOckrOaches."
 The New Haven, Conn, cold storage company reported it had received shipment of eggs which had been without refrigeration for from four to Six weeks. One company reported receipt of a car of colored Easter eggs more than a month after the holiday, an- other company reported receipt of a shipment of putrid ducks eggs and there were constant com plaints of inadequate shipping containers. Some cases were made of fibre which frequently col lapsedw when second case wan piled on top.
 WaFehOuser James ROnin of
 Albany, N. Y., wrote Andrew
 Current. WFA waFehOuseman
 now resigned: "These eggs are
 coming tn lousy condition and
 the smell from some of them in the box cars (eggs should be
 shipped only in refrigerator
 cars) would almost knock you
 off your feet"
 The result is storage companies anxious to aid in the WFA egg drying program, can't contamin" main close to God that our hearts