They also have rulings on Bemberg. Bemberg is a rayon product, and under this Federal Trade Commission ruling it can't be implied that it is not all rayon. These are just examples of what the Federal Trade Commission has picked up. There are many terms that are on the market that confuse the consumer, and those terms have not been picked up. Some of the terms that have been picked up by the Federal Trade Commission are still being used. An example of that is Philippine mahogany.

BRANDS NOT A STANDARD FOR QUALITY

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Now, Mrs. Roller, you said you have some information for us on the subject of brands. That is, I understand that a good many consumers are sold goods on the basis that they are to find out what brand they like; then are to buy it on the basis of that brand; that that is the thing that sells it to them. Now, what studies have you made on that question that would show the committee what happens to a consumer who relies on a brand exclusively in buying goods?

Mrs. ROLLER. Before I tell you what my study has shown, I would like to tell you what seems to me to be the general practice. What happens is that so little information is available, consumers have a feeling that they should rely on brand name, so what they do is go to the store and try out a few brands and then when they find one that seems to suit their needs, they stick with it. That is what the general tendency is, but my studies have shown that that isn't always the best procedure.

For one thing, there are so many brands on the market, it is very difficult for us to go into the store and try out every brand that is available.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Give us examples of the numbers of brands on the market. What information have you on that?

Mrs. ROLLER. The Milwaukee Journal newspaper, published in Milwaukee, has a survey every year. They ask housewives and consumers to submit lists to them of names of commodities that they buy, and for this list each one is given a bag of samples, free samples.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Never mind that; give us the information about the number of brands.

Mrs. ROLLER. Well, they publish this consumer_analysis and we have looked at the consumer analysis for 1938. In Milwaukee, 31 cans-31 brands-of canned milk are sold, 142 brands of coffee, 95 brands of tomato juice, 177 brands of table butter, and even peanut butter has 109 brands. Those are some of the foodstuffs that I took from this list.

I knew that there would be men at this hearing, and so I looked at a couple of things I thought men would be interested in. I found that in Milwaukee alone 235 brands of cigars are sold. Just how a man is going to tell which brand of cigar suits his need is more than I can figure out.

There are 188 brands of safety razors sold in Milwaukee; there are 134 brands of electric washing machines. When a consumer goes out to buy an electric washing machine she spends a considerable sum and she wants to make sure that she is getting the very best that she can. She is placed in a very bad position when she has to go out and make a selection from 134 brands.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Suppose she has made her selection among these so many brands and finds that she likes a certain brand and decides to stick with it. What happens then?

Mrs. ROLLER. Well, for one thing, there is what the informed consumers know as a turnover. We can go to a store and decide that a certain brand is a brand that happens to suit our particular need, and then when we go back for that brand we find that that brand is not available.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Has that ever happened to you?

Mrs. ROLLER. Now that isn't true usually of nationally advertised brands. I have never seen it happen with a nationally advertised brand, but there are so many brands that are not nationally advertised and that very often does happen and has happened to me. I will go to a sale at a chain store, for instance, and like a certain product that is on sale, or it may not even have to be on sale, and when I go back for it a few weeks later or at the next sale I won't find that particular brand.

I studied the chain store inquiry carried on by the Federal Trade Commission, and they had something to say on that very subject of turnover. Can I read you what that is?

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Yes, if it is short.

Mrs. ROLLER. All right. They were testing quality of canned goods, and they went around and selected a number of cans and brands that they wanted to test. Two months later they went back to buy the brands and they found that all of the brands that they wanted were not available. This is what they said in the report:

The failure to procure a higher proportion of the samples ordered was due in part to the fact that it was not possible to place the orders until more than two months after the close of the pricing period for which the brand names had been obtained. The merchandise involved does not flow steadily from producer to the consumer and the brands purchased by distributors vary considerably from time to time.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Now, Mrs. Roller, suppose you found your way through all these brands, got the one you want, and you got a brand that seems to be perfect. You were in pretty good shape, weren't you?

Mrs. ROLLER. No; because I have found that brand is not always a guide to quality.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Have you got some examples of that?

Mrs. ROLLER. Yes; in my own personal experience, I have bought canned peaches in a chain store and then at a later date bought the same brand in another store that was not a chain, and found that the quality was absolutely different. Even I as a consumer could see it.

The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to avoid that, Mrs. Roller. Even before we had the canning of peaches, of fruit, the canning of soup, transferred from the home to the factory there was no uniformity in the product of various homes.

Mrs. ROLLER. Well, the point is that if we expect to buy a certain brand and believe that that is a fancy product, that means a grade A product, then if we buy that same brand at another time, surely we have a right to expect that the same product will have that same. grade A fancy quality.

The CHAIRMAN. Even the housekeeper doesn't always give him the same high-grade meals at home.

Mrs. ROLLER. Yes, that is true, but when we buy things we want to be able-first of all, canning is done under highly mechanized and careful conditions, and we should get a fairly uniform product. If the product isn't uniform, then we should have the right to know it. Mr. FERGUSON. Mrs. Roller, the housewife doesn't advertise her meals, does she?

Mrs. ROLLER. NO.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be surprised.

Mrs. ROLLER. The point is that if we get a meal that isn't up to par we hear about it from our families, but if we buy a grade that isn't equal to what we have been accustomed to buying, we have no redress.

The CHAIRMAN. It doesn't seem to me, as a practical matter, that you can expect to have uniformity in food products, or even in cigars. Different materials are used, different methods are used under different circumstances. Isn't there bound to be a difference in the product? Some manufacturers are very careful, some are very clean, some are very scientific, and some are just the reverse of that.

Mrs. ROLLER. That is true, but the particular instance I am thinking of right now is a brand that happens to be a high-grade nationally-advertised brand that many housewives have a great deal of confidence in, and if I can go to the store and find that I am getting a high-grade peach under their label, and then go to the store and find that I am getting a low-grade peach of an altogether different size under the same label, then I think I have a right to kick.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you paying the same price for it?
Mrs. ROLLER. Yes; often I pay the same price.

The CHAIRMAN. Á producer who would do that would speedily lose business.

Mrs. ROLLER. The point is that many consumers aren't vocal. As I mentioned before, we don't have any money, we don't have any organization, we have no way of letting our needs be known, and we have no way of voicing our protests.

The CHAIRMAN. When you found that this brand of peaches was not up to the standard you had anticipated, you didn't buy that brand a second time?

Mrs. ROLLER. No, I didn't; and since I have had experiences of that sort, I am very careful to try and buy graded canned fruits and vegetables whenever possible. But this process of educating the consumer is a very slow one, and it takes money, which we don't have, and the result is that the consumers don't know.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. You have been pointing out, Mrs. Roller, that one way the consumers do select goods is by brand, and when they do buy on a basis of brand they may not be getting always the same quality.

Mrs. ROLLER. Exactly.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. I think the chairman agrees with you on that. You have some charts you were going to show us on this question of variation in quality?

Mrs. ROLLER. Yes; I have.

While he is getting the chart out I would like to read to you a quotation that I took from this Federal Trade Commission report on canned goods. One of the paragraphs in the report said:

Wide variations in the quality of canned vegetables and fruits packed under identical labels were found in the case of a number of brands. This type of variation was found alike in the brands of chains, manufacturers, wholesalers, and cooperatives.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Now, let me ask you some questions about that chart. Tell us what that chart is.

(The chart referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 511" and appears below.)

EXHIBIT No. 511

VARIATIONS IN QUALITY OF

CANNED FRUITS AND VEGETABLES SOLD UNDER THE
SAME BRAND IN THREE CITIES

RESULTS OF GRADING DISTRIBUTED BY NUMBER OF GRADES AND CANS SAMPLED

BASED ON: REPORT OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION RELATIVE TO QUALITY OF CANNED VEGETABLES AND FRUITS (CHAIN STORE INQUIRY) SENATE DOCUMENT NO. 170, 72d CONGRESS, 2d SESSION, JANUARY 10, 1933 Brand is not a reliable guide to quality of canned fruit and vegetables. When only 2 cans of given brands were tested there was a high degree of uniformity in quality (Bar 1). But as more samples of each brand were tested uniformity decreased and disappeared entirely when 10 or more cans of given brands were tested (Bars 2, 3, and 4). For almost 3 out of 10 of the brands tested, quality was not uniform (Bar 5).

Mrs. ROLLER. This chart shows what happened when brands were graded by the Department of Agriculture. In this column we see what happens when two samples of the same brand were tested. When two samples of one brand were tested, 86.7 percent of the brands tested fell into one grade and only 13.3 percent of the brands tested fell into more than one grade.

But when four samples of each brand were tested, we have a slightly different story. The percentage goes down, and we find that only 31.4 percent of the brands tested fell into one grade and 68.6 percent of the brands tested fell into two or more grades.

Mr. FERGUSON. Who made these tests; the Food and Drug Admin istration?

Mrs. ROLLER. No; the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

When six or eight samples of each brand were tested, only 214percent were uniform and 78.6 percent of the brands fell into two or more qualities. This tends to show that the more samples of a particular brand that are tested the greater the variety of quality you find under that particular brand.

In this column, when 10 or more samples of a particular brand were tested, we have 100-percent variation. That means that all the samples fell into more than one brand.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. More than one grade.

Mrs. ROLLER. I mean more than one grade. Thank you.

This shows that brand is not always a reliable guide to the quality in canned fruits and vegetables.

(The chart referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 512" and appears on p. 3317.)

Mrs. ROLLER. The next chart shows what happens when we consider the same problem, not from the point of view of brand, but from the point of number of cans tested. I think that the last column here is the most important one. Here we have the total. When you consider the total number of cans that were graded we find that 51.5 per cent of the total number of cans fall into one grade and that 48.5 percent fell into more than one grade, so that when you consider it from the point of view of the number of cans rather than brands you find that you have a greater percentage of variation in number of cans tested.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. That black area on that chart shows, doesn't it. in that column, the number of cans in which there was uniformity of grade under each brand tested?

Mrs. ROLLER. Yes.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. You said they were all in the same grade. You didn't mean that.

Mrs. ROLLER. This black bar shows that 51.5 percent of the cans tested fell into one grade. This area above shows that 48.5 percent fell into, were classified into, two or more grades.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, when classified by cans instead of by brand, you had less variation than when classified by brand alone.

Mrs. ROLLER. No; just the reverse is true. When you consider the brand you have 71.2 percent that were uniform and 28 percent that were not uniform, but when you consider cans—