Evening star., 1952-07-14
By WiIliom Hines

BY WiIIiom Hines
All you have to do is dial a
number. Then the Plan takes
over.
That is the way the food plans
work. Either that way or-in the
case of some of the dozen plans
operating here-you fill out a
postcard that has been mailed to
you.
The end result is the same. In
a day or so, sales person calls
perhaps a clean-cut young man,
or maybe an attractive young
matron.
Same Basic Pitch.
There are hundreds of such
statesmen and women operating in
the Washington area. The chances
are that they use the same basic
pitch, no matter which one of the
10 plans they work for it. It is a
pitch tried and found true on the
West Coast, where about 200 food
plans are operating. It consists OF
two parts "a briefcase. full of
visual aid information, which
costs the salesman from SIT to
$40 out of his own pocket, and a
|seven-page, mimeographed spiel
which is supposed to make a sale
as simple as falling off log.
In some of its details, the pitch
varies from plan to plan. Some
promoters tell their statesmen not
to use the word Wholesale" in
connection with the price of gro
ceries. Some discourage the use of
percentages. wanting their sales
men to talk about savings in more
general terms. One plan provides
its statesmen with an impressive
looking Slide-rule affair which
purportedly gives the housewife a
foolproof calculation of her sav-
ingS over a f1ve-year period. 1n-
variably the savings shown are
enough to buy a new carr
One Impression Left.
But whether the word whole
sale" is used; whether the per-
centage is Is or Is or so; whether
an "evaluator card" or simply a
glib tongue is used to clinch the
deal, this one impression is left
with fhc nrocpoct.
IF you are spending $3.50 a.
month on food now, you'll spend
500 after you join our plan. The
more you are spending now. the
more you will save later. And the
purchase of a home freezer will be
painless for you under the deal
we are Offering"
To support these statements,
the salesman is armed with figures
galore-figures that show the fol-
lowing "facts" (best Government
and other impartial estimates of
the truth follow in parentheses): 1:
!. Eighty per cent of your food
budget is spent on perishables.
(Nutritionists say freezable per-
ishables-which are all that are
included in the deal-represent
about 80 per cent Of the food
budget.)
2. You save 30 to 40 per cent
on frozen fruits and vegetables by
buying through the plan. Retail
markups on these items do not ex-
ceed q per cent-often less-and
most food plans mark up these
commodities between 13 and 26
per cent?
Wholesale Ratio False.
3. You get your meats, fruits
and vegetables at wholesale. (Com-
parison between wholesalers Off
cial price lists and those of the
food plans reveal no items being
marketed by the plans at its true
wholesale price.)
4. The amount you save on
food will pay for the freezer and
give you money left over. "It'S
like getting a $350-a-year pay
raise without having to pay in
come tax on it," one food plan
says. (The cost of food freezer,
according to a survey cited in
Consumer Reports magazine, is
such that you would have to save
13 cents a pound on the food that
goes into it in order to pay for
the freezer over a 10-year period.)
5. In this deal, you will get
rib steaks, club steaks, T-bone
steaks, sirloins and porterhouses
for IS cents a pound-less than
you are paying now for hamburg
er. (You also will get suet and
soup bones for IS cents a pound.)
6. Supermarkets add 80 per
cent or more to the cost of the
meat you buy. Zone of the largest
food chains here is currently oper-
ating its meat department at a.
gross profit of Is per cent?
The Big Question.
To return to the salesman's
pitch, here in his peroration:
Il just want to ask you one
question ;. have I demonstrated
to you that by buying your food