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While the installation of one of these locker plants represents a community investment of approximately $25,000, there is a saving of over $50,000 per year in the community's food bill.
For example: John Smith has a 700-lb. heifer ready for market. If shipped to the stockyards, it would net John about $30. Instead, he takes it into the co-op and has it butchered at a cost of $7. It provides him with about 330 lb. of prime beef which the butcher cuts into convenient-sized steaks, chops and roasts. These are frozen quickly and put for storage in John's locker. The same meat, bought over the counter, would cost him $90; his total cost now is $40, including locker rent. If John Smith is expecting a threshing crew in hot weather, when he could not otherwise serve fresh meat from his own stock, he may well save from $100 to $200 during that one work period.
Economically, the locker system is a sound co-operative enterprise. Lockers, large enough to store 325 lb. of meat (or equivalent in fruit and vegetables), rent for $10 per year. There is no labor cost—the butcher more than pays for his time by butchering fees. Power and maintenance costs average about $900 per year. Depreciation at $500 per year is a liberal estimate. Locker rents give a gross income of $5,000. Net result is operating profit of $3,500 per year: enough to amortize entire investment in less than ten years.
Properly frozen foods will keep indefinitely. Meats are "tenderized" amazingly. Strawberries, cherries and other seasonal fruits retain all of their freshness and important food qualities. Delicious roasting ears for Christmas dinner are commonplace to locker owners. And every meal eaten from locker-stored food represents a saving of from 50% to 75% to the locker owner.
WARD E. GUEST
Chicago, Ill.
TIME'S thanks to Engineer Guest for an interesting and little-known sidelight on U. S. consumer co-operation.—ED.
Sirs:
. . . You mention that co-operatives are "even bigger business in Britain. ... It has a $700,000,000 bank."
Would you mind telling me the name of this bank?
H. CARLETON WHITE
Buffalo, N. Y.
Co-operative Wholesale Society, No. 1 Balloon Street, Manchester, England.—ED.
Heights
Sirs:
Every so often TIME reaches great journalistic heights in articles on exceedingly complex subjects that are made crystal-clear under TIME'S adroit pen. The article "Goal Behind Steel" (TIME, July 20) was one such!
A. L. BUCKMAN
Los Angeles, Calif.
Browniana
Sirs:
Concerning your article on Pledge Brown (TIME, July 20), may I add my bit to this collection of Browniana.
In my desk I have two letters to editors of New York papers which he wrote for me to use in approaching them for a job. At the time he went to great trouble to impress me with the fact that hundreds upon hundreds of reporters throughout the length and breadth of the countryside would give their eyeteeth to possess them. . . . And here was I, Destiny's tot, getting them for absolutely nothing. Before that evening was over they cost me $19.