CONSUMERS can save between 20 and 25 per cent on their grocery budgets by forming a buying club at their local church or office, advised co-ordinator of the Network of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) Hazel Brown.

She explained that these clubs would go into different market places, determine what the group needed to buy, and arrange to purchase from a wholesaler at a special price.

She was speaking last Thursday at a public meeting held at the Telephone Workers Credit Union, Henry Street, Port of Spain.

Brown explained that the problem of rising food costs was not the prices, but the lack of consumers' information about what they need.

She noted that in this country the problem was not like in other parts of the world where there are food shortages, and even for products that are in short supply locally there are substitutes.

Brown also expressed concern about calls for cheaper goods to be imported, noting that this could lead to the importation of questionable goods. She gave the example of condensed milk from Thailand and Argentina which had sweetened condensed filled milk.

"This is what we are going to get when they say they going to import cheaper things here. We going to get a whole lot of strange stuff."

She explained that she did not have a problem with food prices as she grows vegetables in her yard, reads product labels and compares prices at supermarkets.

"So I know what there is to suit my need and my budget."

Brown also displayed a bottle of condensed milk she had made the previous night at a cost of less than $2, by cooking one third part of low fat or full cream milk with water to two thirds of sugar on a low heat burner. The meeting was held to discuss the re-formation of the Consumers Association of Trinidad and Tobago.

She recalled that it was a very dynamic organisation back in the 1960s, with between 300-400 people all over the country purchasing products and testing them, and investigating complaints about a particular product or in a particular shopping market.

For more information please contact the Network of NGOs at 627-4807.