Page 214 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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The Story of the C.W.S.
Co-operative News referred to the sale as "an annual co-operative
event," and continued
No step which the Wholesale Committee have taken during the past five
years has proved more satisfactory in its results than their decision to try and
break through the line of middlemen who stood between them and the fruit
producers; and, what is also of importance to note, the result has been
equally satisfactory to the producers themselves. Since the visit of the first
deputation the Society's trade in the articles has developed enormously, while
the constituents of the Wholesale have been supplied with a better quality of
fruit than they ever were before.
The year 1891 saw the first C.W.S. fruit-bu3'ing deputation visit
Spain, while the London Branch in that year held fruit sales, not
only in London, but also at Bristol, CardiiT, and Northampton. In
1892 the C.W.S. inaugurated what the Liverpool press described as
" a new trade for Birkenhead," when a steamer with a full cargo
for the C.W.S. brought " the first consignment of the kind that had
entered the docks." In that year the C.W.S. was renting a bonded
warehouse at Seacombe, and here the buyers gathered. The
following year witnessed the first special fruit sale at Newcastle. It
was held in the shed which then represented the C.W.S. on the
quayside. Sixty-eight societies sent delegates; four hundred tons
were sold; and decorations, dinner, and speeches marked the
festival character of the day. The chief sale of 1894 took place at
the Liverpool Corn Exchange, but, so far as Liverpool was concerned,
the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal already had cast a shadow
upon it. And in 1894 the same steamer that previously had
discharged in Birkenhead brought her cargo into Salford Docks.
After the sale at Balloon Street on this occasion the societies'
representatives were taken for a trip down the canal as far as the
then new soap works at Irlam. As a pleasure excursion, liowever,
it hardly equalled the breezy trips up and down the Mersey which
Mr. A. W. Lobb (at that time the chief C.W.S. representative in
Liverpool) had been sedulous in arranging. At any rate, the
Co-operative News pronounced the new waterway " smelly." Of
recent years, with Mr. J. Mastin at headquarters as the chief fruit
buyer, these sales have reached gigantic dimensions. The total
business done on the sale days at the respective centres in 1912
amounted to the astonishing figures of £1,127,790. General
groceries of all kinds were, of course, included in this total, in which
the actual share of dried fruit proper was £321,785.
The direct dried fruit trade of the Co-operative Wholesale
Society, including its associations with Greek monasteries and
166