The Great Hop Tare Battle
Seattle brewers and merchants fight back against the 'sacking cloth' price gouging of local hop farmers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A meeting of brewers and hop dealers, called by President Hollman of the Produce Exchange, was held on the exchange yesterday to determine whether a board for the protection of hop merchants and consumers in the Produce Exchange could be created. President Hollman appointed a committee to frame articles of association. 'The immediate object of the association,' said Mr. Weillbacher to the reporter, 'is to do away with the custom of paying hop growers for their sacking cloth in which the hops are packed. When hops were low, we didn't mind the slight extra expense, but now that hops are from 17 to 20 cents a pound, this shirt expense amounts to $2 or $3 a bale. The farmer won't allow any tare. He pays for his sacking cloth 75 cents a bale of 175 pounds. The sacking cloth weighs about 7 pounds to the yard, and five yards are used in a bale. That amounts to 35 pounds of cloth, which at $1 a pound amounts to $35, a nice little sum, you see.'
“The hop merchants are interested in this way. They allow the brewer 10 pounds tare per bale of hops, and so the bulk of the loss is on the middle man.”
This dispute over 'tare'—the weight of packaging being sold at the price of the commodity—was a major point of contention in Seattle's historic trade economy. It mirrors modern supply chain squabbles where distributors and retailers fight over who absorbs the cost of packaging waste.
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