standardization of what is in the product, they merely require that it

be labeled, et cetera.

Senator LAUSCHE. Anything further?

(No response.)

Senator LAUSCHE. That is all. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Brady, your testimony will be printed in the record, verbatim. I think all of the witnesses were told they should try and summarize their testimony, emphasizing the highlights and the point they want

to make.

Mrs. BRADY. I will try to do so.

(The full statement follows:)

TESTIMONY ON THE TRUTH-IN-PACKAGING BILL, S. 985, GIVEN BY MILDRED EDIE BRADY, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, CONSUMERS UNION, MOUNT VERNON, N.Y.

During the 4 years that the problem of deceptive packaging has been under consideration by the Congress, there has been remarkably little discussion of the basic issue. Consumers asking for the legislation have said: "We can't compare prices." Industry spokesmen opposing the legislation have said all manner of things, but on this central issue what they have said comes out to little more than "You can, too." Packagers have discovered, since this legislation was introduced, that the American female possesses an astonishing ability to calculate. This heretofore unnoted phenomenon has won great plaudits from industry and has been the subject of some of Madison Avenue's most untrammeled prose. In full-page newspaper ads, the Scott Paper Co., for example, has hailed the American housewife as "The Original Computer." "*** a strange

change comes over a woman in the store," read the ad. "The soft glow in the eye is replaced by a steely financial glint; the graceful walk becomes a panther's stride among the bargains. A woman in a store is a mechanism, a prowling computer ***. Jungle trained, her bargain-hunter senses razor sharp for the sound of a dropping price * * *."

None of these lady panthers, however, came to testify before any of the congressional hearings on packaging. The shoppers who did appear belonged to a lesser breed. They were fully aware, their testimony indicated, of the jungle aspects of their buying experiences, but they failed to undergo that metamorphosis so necessary to successful shopping in today's supermarket. They remained, alas, all too human. "We simply couldn't make price comparisons," they said. But opponents to packaging legislation, having provided the obvious answer to this repeated complaint-turn yourself into a panther and prowl with a computer-have exhibited little further interest in the subject.

The opponents to packaging legislation, as a matter of fact, seemed to be singularly disinterested in the marketplace itself, or in packaging practices as they are evidenced here. Aside from noting that there are 8,000 different items to choose from in the average supermarket and that an increasing percentage of these are new, the packagers have focused their attention on such matters as the remarkable achievements of American industry, the questionable ethics of certain consumer-minded officials and Senators, the dire consequences to creativity and freedom associated with interference in the market, and the contentment and happiness of consumers with things as they are.

There is, of course, nothing reprehensible in bringing up these matters for consideration. Creativity, freedom, and ethics have long been, and should continue to be, of concern to mankind and these large issue are, indeed, involved in the packaging problem. And as for the happiness and contentment of the Nation's citizens as consumers, the preservation of good faith in their day-by-day dealings with one another in the exchange of goods is precious indeed-much too precious to be hazarded for lesser goals or for private ends. But it is disappointing that the packagers have presented so little information about the more specific issue before us because they are, after all, the ones who have access to the full record of packaging practices.

The canners know, for example, just when, where, and to what extent the No. 2 (20 ounces) can has been supplanted by the No. 303 (16 ounces) can, which, in some cases, has been succeeded by the No. 300 (141⁄2 ounces) can. And it is the canners, too, who could tell us in detail what happened to the price per unit of weight as the quantity per can thus slid down. The consumer's ability to document the changes taking place within the 8,000 marketed items is circumscribed, to say the least, and is, of necessity, limited to the short

run.

Consumers are able to observe isolated instances such as, for example, that Betty Crocker Instant Mashed Potatoes, which came in a 7.2-ounce package and cost 37 cents around 1961 still costs 37 to 39 cents but now comes in a package containing only 6.5 ounces. But what is the full story? What has happened to competing brands?

Or take the case of Kraft Fudgies. In 1960 or thereabouts the contents of this bag of candy dropped from 15 to 12 ounces. The price stayed the same, 29 cents. By 1961 the weight of Fudgies had dropped again, this time to 10 ounces. The price stayed at 29 cents. Thus purchasers of that product were subjected to a -50-percent price increase in a matter of months. But there may be more to this story. Was Fudgies always a hungry (15 ounces), not an honest (16 ounces), pound? Had Kraft merchandisers, when they launched this brand, counted from the start on their customers, a good many of whom are probably children, not knowing about how many ounces are in a pound? Or was that 15-ounce package a first step down? Only Kraft could tell us what has taken place over what period of time in the price per unit of weight of their candy. Even the wide-flung resources of the Department of Labor's Bureau of Statistics cannot document the impact of this kind of quantity manipulation, which multiplied time and time again over wider and wider commodity groups is what has sent consumers to Congress with their complaint: "We cannot compare prices."

The opponents to this legislation, however, have preferred to examine, not the packages on the market, but the consumers who buy them. Consumer panels and surveys have popped up all over the place. The findings from these inquiries run a gamut from such simple and obvious observations as that some consumers have cut their fingers on the pop-top beer cans to a most astonishing discovery, this one claimed by Good Housekeeping magazine, that 95 percent of the housewives read the labels carefully when they are shopping for food. The food industry, itself, came up with the considerably less than astonishing discovery that when consumers were primed with manufacturers' arguments against the packaging changes, a good many agreed that changes were not necessary.

This particular survey of consumers, financed by the Grocery Manufacturers of America, does not flatter the audience for which it was intended. It measured nothing-not even the comparative persuasive power of the industry's propaganda, since none but manufacturers' views were presented. Although GMA's research hit a new low in such efforts, all of the industry-sponsored surveys and panels that CU has come across have studiously avoided any attempts to measure a consumer's ability to compare prices on today's market. Such a survey question would not be difficult to design. Taking cookies, for example, the question might look like this:

"Listed below are the prices and net weights for a variety of Nabisco and Sunshine cookies found on the shelves of a First National supermarket in Westchester County, N.Y., during the week of April 26, 1965. Will you please select the cookie that costs the least:

The interviewer would report the number who refused to try as well as timeock those who did, while the survey analysis would check the accuracy of the nswers. A weakness of this inquiry, it must be admitted, would be its failre to reflect fully the shopping experience because in the survey question the et weights are lined up neatly and clearly alongside the prices, while in reality et weights are practically never on the same side of the package as the price, nd they are frequently very hard to find. One of the things the Scott Paper Co. forgot to mention in its account of lady into panther was the change in yesight as well as stride. A prowling computer must be lynx eyed to be programed for today's supermarket.

I have here two samples of a cookie package that was sent in a few weeks ago y a reader of Consumer Reports. Perhaps the members of the committe might ike to test their own ability to compare the prices. The cost of this bag of cookies was, as you will note, 49 cents. So here's the question. How much did these particular cookies cost per pound and are they expensive or inexensive as compared with the cookies listed above?

Opponents to this legislation have made the point time and again that consumers are interested in aspects of a product other than price-in convenience, attractiveness, reliability, and quality. That is certainly true. And consumers face serious problems in these areas. Products change behind their brand names and different brands often identify the same product, selling under its various disguises at different prices. But this legislation does not penetrate into these subtler evasions of price competition. It is concerned simply with a consumer's ability to compare prices at the retail level. It is concerned with an outbreak of commercial frenzy that threatens to undermine the very taproot of the distribution system of the free enterprise economy. In his discussion of "Competition as a Dynamic Process," America's leading economist, John Maurice Clark, writes: "The efficiency of American retail distribution begins with openly marked prices (instead of the old-fashioned cabalistic symbols) on identifiable products. This assures the customer the same price as other customers in the same store. It does not assure equal prices in different stores, but it facilitates the kind of customer comparison that keeps differentials between stores within bounds."

But a customer is no longer assured that he will pay the same price for the same product in the same store as that paid by other customers. In place of those old-fashioned cabalistic symbols, quantity manipulations plus cabalistic price declarations now penalize the trusting buyer. On the shelves of some supermarkets in the New York City area there appeared, a week or so ago, two sizes of the instant coffee, Nescafe-a 6- and a 7-ounce size. Each was priced at $1.03. Each bore a 10 cents off label. Here were two different prices for the same product. And no stockboy could be blamed. In addition to the cents-off label, the 7-ounce size bore this additional legend: "Buy 6 ounces, get 7." Readers of Consumer Reports have reported instances of finding as many as three different prices for the same item on the same shelf at the same time.

At an A. & P. supermarket in Westchester, on May 1, 1965, the liquid detergent, Mr. Clean, was available at prices calculated on a per-unit-of-weight basis for: 41.6 cents; 39.5 cents; 28 cents; and 26.88 cents a pint. Both the highest and lowest prices were stamped on the 15-ounce, hungry-pint size. About half the samples on the shelf bore a 12 cents off label. The other half did not. Some customers in that store either had paid, or would pay, 40 percent more for the same product than had other customers.

Along with the cents-off claims goes a label warranty reading: "Price as marked is so many cents off regular price." That guarantee is doubly deceptive. What is the regular price, would you say, of Mr. Clean? What is the regular price of any product? That is no easy question, as the Federal Trade Commission learned sometime ago in its attempts to rid certain segments of the retail market of the deceptive practice known as the phony list price. And if regular price eludes definition, what then are branders promising with their cents-off declarations? But even if a regular price could be defined, the cents-off guarantee is still deceptive. Except where the price of a product has been dictated by a brander availing himself of the price-fixing privileges granted by that retrogressive legislation misnamed "fair trade," attempts of manufacturers to control retail prices violate Federal law. The branders making these cents-off claims are well aware that they are promising what they cannot deliver. CU has received many, many letters reporting prices charged that were inconsistent with cents-off label claims.

The manufacturers sponsoring the offending labels, to whom these complaints were referred, have invariably answered that they are not responsible for the deception because they have no control over prices in retail stores. There is no need to labor this point. Cents-off labels do not provide the meaningful price information they appear to. They are not price guides at all. They are promotional devices designed to make the buyer believe that he is being offered a bargain, and they are deceptive because bargains cannot be determined without price comparisons. A 10-cents off label on the 1 pint 6 ounce size of the liquid detergent, Joy, does not make that brand a bargain when a quart of a competing brand, Sail, costs, on a per-unit-of-weight basis, 30 percent less than Joy at the cents-off price. And cents-off promotions are not, as has been contended, like coupons, premiums, box-top offers and prize contests. These latter are promises to deliver, unlike the cents-off promise, that, if he will, a brander can fulfill. Finally, no evidence has come to CU's attention to document the statement that cents-off claims save consumers money.

Obviously, any consumer switched from Sail to Joy by the latter's 10-cents-off label did not save money. He was, rather, deceptively induced to spend more. Some spokesmen for the food manufacturers have intimated that a cents-off offer on the label saves money for consumers because without it supermarkets would maintain prices and pocket any promotional price reductions made by a brander. This is a serious allegation. CU has, of course, no way to determine the truth or falsity of it. If, however, price competition in the retail grocery field has actually been rendered so impotent, then the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has surely failed the American people and so have the food manufacturers who have withheld evidence of conspiracy from the Government while they have promoted their cents-off labels.

According to industry-sponsored surveys, consumers have said that they are favorably influenced toward a product with a cents-off label and reports from the retail trade seem to confirm the effectiveness of cents-off claims in switching consumer choice. This evidence of favorable consumer response to cents-off labels does not, however, constitute justification for continuing the practice, as some industry spokesmen have appeared to believe. Such evidence, on the contrary, provides a compelling case for legislation to prohibit it. It is precisely the success of deceptive packaging practices that has created the need for this legislation. If we were all prowling computers there would be no problem. But since we are human, the problem posed is a serious one, serious not only for the shopper but for the Nation.

The burden placed upon consumer sovereignty by the free enterprise system is a heavy one, growing heavier as products and markets reflect the mounting complexity of technology and the increasing power of sellers to manipulate demand. But the priceless ingredient of effective competition remains free and rational consumer choice. Any marketing practice that renders rational choice more difficult is a subversion of the American economy. When consumers say "We can't compare prices," they are voicing no minor complaint. They are sounding an alarm. Diogenes Laertius once wrote: "The market is a place set apart where men may deceive each other." But Diogenese Laertius lived over 1,500 years ago in a different kind of economy. In 20th century America the market is no longer a place apart. It is intimately woven into the fabric of our lives. We depend upon its functioning for that which distinguishes our competitive economic system from other economies. And it is the survival of the free market that is what this legislation is all about.

The protestations of devotion to the free market from the packagers, especially from those in the food industry, have a hollow ring. Let me ask you a question. Suppose that, instead of controls to make it possible for consumers to compare prices, the legislation before this committee proposed that supermarket chains be required to allocate no more than a given percentage of their shelf space to their own private brands, how do you think these freedom-loving food branders would be testifying?

The packaging chaos on the market today is, of course, an unforeseen outcome of the battle for the shelf space that began just after World War II as self-serve supermarkets came to dominate food distribution. That was when the package became a salesman and the supermarket an advertising medium. In addition to the more than $1 billion spent in conventional media, food manufacturers spend another 20 percent of that amount on advertising allowances paid out to retail

ers.

And in this battling and bribing for shelf space, bad practice drove out the good. It was and remains a quicksand situation. No single packager could extricate himself from it with impunity. Yet one after another food manufacturer has rejected packaging legislation which provides the only means out of the deepening mire. And in its attack on this legislation, the food industry has not only falsified history but has falsely accused Senator Hart and Esther Peterson, the President's Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs, of attempting to mislead the consuming public on this issue. Although I am sure no member of this committee was influenced by the charge (made by Charles Mortimer, chairman of General Foods Corp.) that the packaging problem was fabricated out of whole cloth for political purposes, I would like to submit for the record evidence that deceptive packaging had become a serious issue with consumers some time before either Senator Hart or Esther Peterson gave the matter their attention. In 1956, for example, CU's president, Colston Warne, addressed the National Conference on Weights and Measures on the subject. That speech, together with other material appearing in Consumer Reports before 1961, contains specific examples of bad packaging practices that were plaguing the market and that have worsened over the years. And as evidence that the market continues to exhibit more and more deception, I would like to submit for the record a few recent samples of the letters CU has continued to receive from consumers for the past 10 years.

Although evidence has accumulated in the record of testimony on this legislation, impressive and voluminous evidence, it is difficult for even those concerned directly with this problem to maintain their awareness of how reckless packages can become and of how deep the quicksand is. Let me give you an example. On the shelves of the A. & P. supermarket on Route 22, Eastchester, N.Y., on April 28, 1965, here were the choices of laundry detergent offered: