CHIEF FACTOR IS PRICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 161, 9 July 1940, Page 4

CHIEF FACTOR IS PRICE.

BUTTER V. MARGARINE,

EXPERIENCE IN BRITAIN

In Britain, when the # price of butter increases, the demand swinge to margarine. When the price of butter brings it within the reach of the ordinary consuming public, the demand for margarine falls. This is the burden of a letter received by an Auckland firm from a United Kingdom business house.

"Since the ration of butter was increneed to Boz per head per week the margarine trade has gone very flat," the trade letter says. A suggestion from margarine interests that demand for their product would return, the letter added, was due to the reduction of butter to 4oz per head per week. "The same thing takes place over and over again in the British lelee," the communication said. When butter is placed within the reach of the masses, they will not purchase margarine. If butter were being sold at 1/ to 1/2 per lb, there would be very little demand for margarine, but when butter goes beyond 1/4 per lb there is always the danger of a certain percentage of the people swinging over to the higher grades oi margarine. It is all a question of supply and price. The. demand is there if the price is considered right by the consuming public. "Years ago there was a saying in the north of England that '14 days of 1/ butter would make any market, and 14 days of 16d butter would break any market. .

"It can be taken as reasonably certain that while under peace conditions this remark applies, it does so with equal force to-day. After a very long experience spent in the food trade, we are not afraid that the British consuming public will ever go over entirely to margarine so long as butter is available at a reasonable price."