CHAIN STORES FOR NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20757, 18 January 1933, Page 14

CHAIN STORES FOR NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE.

TO TEH EDITOR OF THE rRESS. Sir, —I was interested in the remarks of tho Englishman who was interviewed by one of your staff about chain stores and our butter. I have just returned from a long holiday in England. Everywhere one finds this country well advertised—New Zealand butler, New Zealand cheese, Canterbury lamb. But if the right marketing of the thing advertised does not follow, to what good the advertisement f The idea of the chain stores at which nothing but New Zealand butter is sold seems to me a sound one. At present one goes into a produce store in England —most of them are excellent—and one's New Zealand eye travels to a large slab of butter bearing the inscription "New Zealand." Well, one buys from that slab; but who is to know whether that butter has in its entire bulk come from New Zealand! The English people are used to chain stores, as witness tho enormous success of Boots (chemists), Sainsbury (produce), Lyons (refreshment), to say nothing of Woolworths —all of which may be found in any town of, say, 5000 inhabitants in England and in many Scottish towns also. New Zealand butter stoics run by New Zealand enterprise and admitting no other sort would have a like success. The Amalgamated Dairies of Auckland haye a large factory near the oval in South-east London, in which their butter is put into cartons, similar to those in which Pern Leaf is packed here. Their butter is called "Anchor brand" butter. I understand that, it sells well. It cannot possibly be adulterated. It is put up in lb and *lb cartons. But one cannot but be "not too sure" of the large naked slabs of butter with their inscription "New Zealand Butter." If exhibited in a purely New Zealand shop, there could be no doubt. It is when one returns to this country and sees the marvellous crops and pastures and foodstuffs—not so noticeable when one lives continuously here—that one is sorry that, we do not get it over a bit more advantageously—Yours, etc., G.M.G. January 17, 1933.