Imperial Valley Press

Coffee Ration Here

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21—(U.P.)—Retail sales of coffee stop at midnight tonight to give storekeepers one week to stock their shelves in preparation for start of rationing on November 29.

Thereafter the greatest coffee-drinking nation in the world will limit itself to one pound every five weeks for each person over 15 years of age—approximately a cup a day.

Rationing will mean a 38 per cent cut in sales of coffee to the 80 per cent of the adult U.S. population who drink it and have made it the national beverage. But Americans will still use much more coffee than Europeans who generally get only an ersatz concoction of acorns and grains.

IMPORTS CUT

The rationing program was necessitated by a cut of 25 per cent in coffee imports since Pearl Harbor.

Ships formerly flying the coffee route between the United States and South America now are carrying bauxite ores for aluminum or have been transferred to routes to Britain, Africa, Russia and other fighting fronts.

Coffee to be rationed includes all roasted coffee whether ground or in the bean, as well as decaffeinated products and those mixed with chicory, cereals or other substitutes. Consumers will not be permitted to buy green or unroasted coffee and home roasting is out.

Varieties of "instant" coffee are not rationed.

USE SUGAR BOOK

War ration book number one, already in use for sugar rationing, will be used in buying coffee.

The first ration period runs for five weeks from November 29 through January 3, 1943, when each book-holder 15 years of age or older may purchase one pound of coffee for stamp number 27. Coffee stamps are numbers 28 down to 20 but because of arrangement in the ration book, the first stamp is 27, the second 28.

Other ration periods will be announced later.

War Production Chief Donald M. Nelson recently declared that if shipping conditions should improve, rationing of coffee will be eased or even abolished.

Where lack of transportation facilities makes it difficult for a consumer to buy coffee a pound at a time, he may apply at his rationing board for a certificate to buy up to five pounds. Stamps will be removed to cover such advance rations.