Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1935. DAIRY MARKETING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 291, 21 September 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1935. DAIRY MARKETING.

The decision of the conference of representatives of the dairy produce exporting companies for the establishment of group marketing on the British market is a most important one. For many years there has been apparent a need for greater co-ordination in marketing, and the statement of conditions by the London manager of the Dairy Board carried-conviction to the sixty delegates present at the conference, so that the decision was practically unanimous. The chairman of the Board informed the delegates that the issue was either to give up supervision of marketing or else move forward by co-operation with the dairy companies to lay the foundation on which can be built an adequate marketing structure. The increasing competition from Denmark and other countries that supply the British market threatens to make serious inroads on the held available to this Dominion, and the scheme now adopted promises to provide means for meeting that competition on more equitable lines so far a? marketing methods are concerned. For the purposes of the scheme the Dominion is to be divided into seven groups, each marketing its produce under one group brand. The advantage claimed for this system is that each group will have a substantial quantity of produce to offer of comparable quality and character, permitting buyers to draw from good, straight lines in any desired quantity. The proceeds of the sale of produce from each group will be pooled, permitting the exploitation of areas in which sales are slow, and providing the opportunity to each group to link up if necessary with a particular distributive organisation in the United Kingdom. The success of this system will depend on the co-operation of the companies, the great factor being the maintenance of uniformity of high quality. Those factories that have the lowest gradings in any one group will have to improve their quality so that the better class produce does not suffer by the pooling of output. It may be that some groups will earn a better reputation than others, just as some factories now enjoy a wider demand than others. This, however will not operate to the detriment of New Zealand any more than the present system of individual brands does. Variation in the quality of the various factories must be eliminated as far as possible, for the premium for quality proposed in the scheme will effect only a compensation between the members of the group, and will not influence the price obtained on the market. Arrangement of the actual process of marketing and administration of the scheme shorn not present any great difficulties, provided the companies extend in P rac ' tice the support their delegates have given in principle.