BLENDED BUTTER.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19910, 23 April 1930, Page 8

BLENDED BUTTER.

PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC. (FKOM OUR OWK COHRBSPONDBNT.) LONDON, March 13. The revelations made a week ago with regard to butter blending aro referred to again in "The Times." After mentioning that roughly 80,000 tons of butter is used for blending the agricultural correspondent of "The Times" goes on to say:—"lt is here that intervention is called for, in the interests alike of the homo producers and consumers. The processes of blending aro a fit subject for close enquiry, for, although the blended article may be palatable, equity and prudence suggest the adoption of measures to ensure that the •nutritive quality of the buttftr is not impaired. It is not proposed that the blending of butter and tho sale of the blonded brands should bo prtfiibited; all that agriculturists urge is that it should be made impracticable for butter of this description to be sold, wholesale or rotail, as genuine butter. This is a perfectly reasonable demand, and it should be possible to devise means for safeguarding home producers against the restriction of markets and the depression of prices through competition with commodities which, however attractive to eye or palate, aro definitely inferior in food value. Equally, the consumer haS claims to bo saved from paying higher prices for tho blended article than are consonant with the merit of tho commodity. Sir Douglas Newton stated that under existing conditions consumers were paying £ 2,000,000 a year more for blondod butter than its actual worth. He asserted that the process of blending and the manner of selling the butter enabled the vendors to charge 3d or 4d a pound moro than the butter would make before blending.

Thorough Investigation Advised. "Theso are remarkable figures, and in the common interest it is important that the question should be thoroughly investigated, and, if the suggestions are confirmed, no time should be lost in framing and enforcing measures for protecting farmers and the consuming public from the results of systems that act adversely upon homo industry and domestic economy. Sir Douglas Newton cited in support of his case the notable fact that, while large quantities of butter are imported from countries as far apart as Russia and South. America, butter froiii those countries i* seldom t obtainable ,;on the retail market. Dominion butter and butter from certain.other sources, of course,' are purchasable as imported in almost any shop, but the supplies from many of the smaller sources, the purity and qaulity of which may fairly be questioned, disappear after theijf Jjr&wL in this country, and it is suggested that they reappear in the • guises- fief erred to at ,'tlio meetings of. the different bodies last week.

"The" subject may not be new, but it -has acquired a new meaning on account of the pressing necessity for disposing to better advantage of the surplus milk in this, country. It is believed that the Ministry for Agriculture is sympathetic to any scheme that would make the position better for the producers, but Bome uncertainty obtains regarding the attitude of the Ministry for Health. It- is fair that the position of the Departments should be elucidated by searching enquiry without loss of time, for the immediate future of the milk business is creating growing concern. Nothing more is asked for than that it should be made impossible, or exceedingly difficult, for imported butter to be blended anil sold under conditions that make identification difficult or uncertain."

A Matter of Deception. "The fraction of tho imported butter used' for blending purposes which comes from Australia, - New Zealand, and other parts of the Empire," says "The Times" in a leading article, "is produced under good conditions and is of a high standard of excellence. Of the rest it is sufficient to say that in some of the foreign countries in which it is produced the standards of dairy .inspection, if any, are much inferior to those imposed by the law in Great Britain and in the Dominions. "But the vital point is not so much the quality - of the ; imported butter,> as the fact that the trade in the blended article is largely a matter of deception. Nor is that all. As at present conducted, it not only deceives the customer by deliberately causing its wares to masquerade under false pretences as something better than they are, but at the same time defrauds the British dairy farmer by trading on the high reputation of his produce to, its manifest injury. If a section of the British public prefer the taste of the blended butter to the. pure product, of their native farms, and are ready to pay more for it than it is worth, they cannot be prevented from buying it. On the other hand they can be protected from buying it under a false name. Unless the united wisdom of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Empire ' Marketing Board, the Food Council, the Board of Trade, and the Ministry for Health, can find a better way of righting the wrong, they might at least adopt the suggestion of the Imperial Economic Committee, and see that it is branded and sold as butter that is 'blended' and not as something which it is not."