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Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
The story of a pantry shelf, an outline history of grocery specialties: a machine-readable transcription.
7,000 Co-Operating
Fruit Growers
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7,000 Co-Operating
Fruit Growers
More Than Half the Citrus Fruit
of Florida Is Marketed Through the
Florida Citrus Exchange, Which
Sells More Than $50,000,000
Worth of Fruit Every Year
More Than Half the Citrus Fruit of Florida Is Marketed Through the Florida Citrus Exchange, Which Sells More Than $50,000,000 Worth of Fruit Every Year
The history of the Florida Citrus Exchange is an interesting one, closely related to the development of the industry which the organization serves and intimately connected with the progress of central and south Florida.
Previous to the big freeze of 1895, Florida's citrus industry was chiefly centered in the northern tier of the counties which constitute the present citrus belt. Marion County was probably the largest producer of oranges at that time. Only a negligible quantity of grapefruit was grown.
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In the season or two preceding the 1895 freeze, Florida's citrus production approached five million boxes annually. Marketing methods were of a haphazard and unscientific character. As the crop increased, returns to growers became less and less satisfactory. There was much talk overproduction. Grove owners gradually became convinced that they must organize to provide a more orderly system of selling their output.
It was finally decided to form a selling agency that would be controlled by the growers. This was completed at a convention of 300 delegates, representing 3,000 growers, held at Orlando, April 24, 1894. The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association was the name chosen. Its headquarters were at Ocala, and the active executive officer was Myron E. Gillett. While not strictly cooperative in character, and somewhat crude in its methods judged by present-day standards, this organization was rapidly coming to the front when the freeze happened in 1895 and so reduced citrus production that for several years marketing problems ceased to trouble Florida growers.
Early in the present century production had begun to assume considerable proportions once more. The area of citrus production had been rapidly pushed southward. Grapefruit, as well as oranges, were beginning to be regarded as a commercial crop. Soon Florida's output in citrus reached such volume as to indicate five million boxes or more a year in a short time. Marketing methods had been but slightly improved and remained in a highly disorganized basis, affording growers little protection and failing to provide adequate means for the proper distribution of the increasing yields. The reviving citrus industry was threatened with dissolution, due to the fact it was getting on an unprofitable basis.
Meanwhile, California had entered the citrus field. Marketing difficulties had threatened the citrus industry of that State in a most serious manner. The more aggressive of the growers had got together and, taking their cue from the earlier effort in Florida, decided upon a cooperative organization. There were any number of ups and downs in the movement,
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but finally it gained strength and out of it grew the California Fruit Growers Exchange, commonly regarded as the oldest of the seasoned cooperatives. It was the natural thing for Florida growers, confronted by a situation threatening the existence of their business, to look to California for inspiration and example.
Dr. F. W. Inman, of Florence Villa, Polk County, took the lead in the movement to organize Florida growers. Gathering about him a group of like-minded men, he consistently, insistently and persistently advocated the idea of cooperative marketing. Finally he persuaded several dozen of his associates to join him in a trip to California, where weeks were spent in study of the California Fruit Growers Exchange. Returning to Florida, Dr. Inman and his supporters formed the Florida Citrus Exchange, the charter and by-laws closely following the California model.
The Florida Citrus Exchange first got down to business in the shipping season of 1909-10. Dr. Inman had been elected president and M. E. Gillett general manager. A much larger crop of grapefruit and oranges than had ever been produced before had to be moved. The formative steps of the movement had taken more time than was anticipated, and the Florida Citrus Exchange was thrown into active operation really before it was able to perform. Climatic conditions of an abnormal character gave a crop of fruit that was difficult to handle. The net results of the first year's effort were far from pleasing to most growers, and many of them were immediately "off" the Exchange for the future.
Disappointed, but not discouraged, Dr. Inman and most of the leaders of the movement stood by the ship. In the years that followed there were a number of changes made in the management at various times. During the ten years which Dr. J. H. Ross served as president and C. E. Stewart, Jr., as business manager, the Florida Citrus Exchange showed its best growth, increasing its volume from 25 to 35 per cent of the crop and building up a loyal membership.
During the summer of 1924 the Florida Citrus Exchange experienced another reorganization, adding a number of new
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members to its ranks and increasing its crop holding to something just a little less than 50 per cent of the total Florida production. Dr. Ross retired as president on the anniversary of his eightieth birthday and was succeeded by L. C. Edwards, prominent grower, who still retains that office.
The membership of the Florida Citrus Exchange now numbers 7,000 cooporative growers, who own and control 123 associated packing houses in every section of Florida's citrus belt. Its headquarters are established at Tampa, from which it operates a well-organized sales department, with paid representatives in every leading citrus fruit market of the country to sell its trade-marked Sealdsweet and other brands of fruit. Its sales business averages nearly $50,000,000 a year.
Florida now markets more than 20,000,000 boxes of citrus fruit a year, and the growers get better prices than they did fifteen years ago, when they produced but five million boxes. The Florida Citrus Exchange has scored many accomplishments in its work of stabilizing that State's fruit industry, though with Florida's production still increasing it still has plenty of work to do in that direction. That Florida growers appreciate the need for cooperative marketing is evidenced by the fact that they are joining the Florida Citrus Exchange in greater numbers each day.
Information about SGML version of this document.
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