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Show and grocery stores in every city, suburb and shopping center cen-ter from the sprawling metropolis me-tropolis to the remotest cross- road. The food industry is as I essential to the United States j as the products it sells. There ! it not one person in the land j who does not benefit from its ; existence. i It is so much easier to drift than row against the current j that many are willing to change their destinations to ac- j' comodate convenience. j Food costs take less of check than in 1947-49 The cash for today's monthly month-ly food budget can be earned by the average factory worker in 37 hours. In the period 1947-49, 1947-49, it took the same worker 60 hours. In 1957 the average worker worked 6 minutes to buy a quart of milk. Today, according to figures compiled by the National Industrial Conference Con-ference Board from the Bureau Bur-eau of Labor Statistics, he works 5 minutes. A pound of butter "cost" 22 working minutes in 1957; today to-day it "sells" for 19 minutes. I A pound of coffee leaves the J store shelf for 18 minutes of I your time today; in 1957 you had to work 31 minutes for it. Chicken checks in at 4 minutes a pound cheaper than it was formerly. Staples such as sugar, su-gar, canned tomatoes, dried beans and bread are all a minute min-ute cheaper than in the decade of the 50's. We are spending the smallest small-est percentage of our take home pay for food at any time in our history. We spend 19 cents out of each dollar for food, the lowest figure for any country in the free world. And in Russia workers spend around 53 of their income for food. The food industry is basic day to day. Employees number nearly five million workers whose total output is valued j at $70 billioons and more annually. an-nually. Its products are marketed mar-keted through thousands of distribution warehouses over the nation. These products travel from the warehouses to about 300,000 supermarkets |