Mobile Butcher's Shop Serves Two Estates
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A N N.C.B. 2-ton battery electric built by Smith's Electric Vehicles, Ltd., Gateshead-on-Tyne, and fitted out as a mobile pork butcher's shop, is being operated by R. Stoddard and Sons, Ltd., Icknield Street, Birmingham, 18. Covering 25 miles a day, five days a week, the vehicle serves two rapidly expanding municipal housing estates at Shard End and Garretts Green, where the nearest permanent shopping centre is two miles away.
Besides supplying the normal range of pork butchers products, the vehicle also carries stocks of tinned and bottled goods and other heavy groceries, as well as fresh frozen vegetables, fruits, fish and meat. This comprehensive service is proving so popular with housewives that regular routes and timetables have been worked out for the driver-salesman to cover each district thoroughly.
The vehicle was supplied through e14 Electric Vehicle Service (Birmingham), Ltd., Birmingham, 7. Powered by an Exide-Ironclad 36-cell battery of 323 a.h. capacity. it measures 15 ft. 9 in. long, 6 ft. 7i in. wide, and weighs 44 tons when loaded.
Two large refrigerated cupboards for frozen foods are provided inside. These are situated behind a Formica-topped counter fitted at one end with a slicing machine and at the other with a special set of self-levelling scales. • The vehicle is also equipped with a hot-water storage tank and wash-basin. Fluorescent lighting is employed and there is an extractor fan. The. arrival of the vehicle is signalled by a musical horn, R. Stoddard and Sons, Ltd., are now trying to interest a local baker and greengrocer in the possibilities of mobile shops, with the idea of forming a convoy of vehicles to supply all the essential foodstuffs to the two estates.