Price Spreads, Costs, and Marketing Channels for Eggs and Poultry Sold in Trenton, N.J.

Excerpts from the report: Marketing channels for eggs and poultry in medium size cities often are assumed to be more direct and less complex than in great metropolitan areas, and marketing margins are thought to be lower. To test these ideas, a study was made of the price spreads, costs, and marketing channels for eggs, frying chickens, fowl, and turkeys in Trenton, capital city of New Jersey. This city of more than 114,000 people is 56 miles southwest of New York City and 32 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Its people probably consume annually about 3.4 million dozens of eggs, 3.3 million pounds of frying chickens, and about 0.7 million pound of turkeys. Data for the study were obtained from: (1) A random sample of 33 of the 437 independent retail food stores in Trenton (a list of these stores was furnished in 1957 by a New Jersey newspaper); (2) major food chains with stores in the city; (3) 20 wholesale egg distributors; (4) 13 wholesale poultry distributors; (5) 10 poultry processors. Information on buying and selling prices, quantities purchased, and sources of supply was obtained from retailers, distributors, and processors for the months of December 1957 and June 1958 for all products included in this study. Data on turkeys were also obtained for November 1957