DAIRY PRODUCE MARKETS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 250, 22 October 1935, Page 6

DAIRY PRODUCE MARKETS

POSSIBILITIES OF INDIA. (To the Editor.) I read your correspondent's (Mr. Tctzner) letter with some interest. He understates the position. The price given in the report for pure butter ghee is lOd to 1/, New Zealand money. Native butter brings over 2/ and native cooking butter from 1/6 to 1/9 (N.Z.) throughout India, according to Indian newspapers. The report says it takes 1001b of butter to make 801b of ghee. Butter sold at 1/6 cannot be turned into ghee and sold at 1/ from a mercantile point of view. There are two explanations: cither the ghee is adulterated or else the ghee referred to is made from curdled milk, and in that case about 41b of o-hee can be produced from the amount of milk that is required to produce lib of butter. This last explanation was given to me last week by a Hindu who knows the ghee trade. He also informed me that there was nothing in the idea that cow ghee should be white. This only applies to buffalo ghee. Last year the Government depended upon a copy of Jos. Nathan and Company's report, prepared by its Bombay branch. This firm's branches in many parts of India act as agents for the great firm of Tatas, a Parsee margarine firm. Our largest export to India consists of specially-refined fats, mostly used to adulterate ghee and butter or for margarine purposes. The Dairy Research Department has just informed me that it gets part of its information from New Zealand firms with agents in India. Perhaps the caste system does not affect New Zealand animal fats. It would be nice to know whether the Dairy Research Department depends upon firms that do not do a margarine business in India, and the names of these New Zealand firms. F. H. BRIGGS.