Page 229 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Luton and Cocoa.
employees, of whom there were 190 in 1902, numbered 310 in 1912.
Such facts, with the innumerable interesting but not historic details
of everyday business, have chiefly constituted the story of the works.
It should be added that the cocoa business, like the tea department,
of which it is the outgrowth, is a joint property with the Scottish
Wholesale Society.

In 1887 one or two co-operative societies were prosecuted and
fined for selling " adulterated " pepper, which the C.W.S. had
obtained and supplied. The Wholesale Society promptly had its
pepper analysed. Two emment analysts certified the merchandise
to be pure, while two other reports, equally to be credited, were
precisely to the contrary. In explanation it was said that a pepper
absolutely free from natural impurities was difficult to obtain.
However, in June, 1887, the C.W.S. Committee announced an
intention thenceforward of undertaking the grinding of pepper, in
pursuance of a desire to give the societies a pure article if it were
within human power. At Manchester and Newcastle the delegates,
who had previously taken a considerable interest in the question of
pure pepper, passed over this statement without comment. But
at London Mr. Greening again interposed. Pepper grinding might
be a separate manufacture, even comparable to flour milling.
Permit pepper, and mustard might follow. At any rate, the legal
opinion of Mr. E. V. Neale ought to be taken as to the need of a
special meeting. Mr. Ben Jones replied that to grind pepper was to
prepare and not to manufacture. The controversy was worthy of
the mediaeval schoolmen; yet Mr. Greening's amendment was only
defeated by 36 votes to 26. Pepper grinding thenceforth became
one of the minor operations at Balloon Street. Until the year 1912
it was carried on in a small factory in Hanover Street, opposite the
present Holyoake House, but the business has now become a
department of the C.W.S. Silvertown Grocery Productive Factory.
At the time of the audacious pepper-grinding proposal, the
C.W.S. Committee also sought power to establish a cheese factory
in America. The Society had become an importer of American
cheese to the number of 90,000 yearly, and the possession of one or
two small factories (and it was estimated that a factory could be set
up for £500) was expected to prove very advantageous to the
federation in its cheese buying. It would protect the Society against
fraud, and be a practical convenience under the special circumstances
of American cheese production. The recommendation was endorsed
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