THE BITTER MARKET

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21082, 6 February 1934, Page 14

THE BITTER MARKET

j /I£F. KDITOI'. OF THE PXESS. 3:;-, --Your correspondence column .\ always interesting, and in your issue <>. yesterday is a letter by one signed "Dairyman" about the butter market. Tre Suiveley gentleman says it is , ,'..-d"h to make the angels weep. He , r-l-u-ei the farmers should weep, s.-Vl that we should all weep co-oper-;:'.ve v. What a lot of water! No , ( ,„der the butter cannot be sold. Of ~) i;r<r one has to have a buyer, and he is hard to please. ' Recentlv I wrote . Home to my ~, and others, and asked them to 1 .-<■" Vew Zealand products a Jan •'■• a' and then give me an opinion ,pun the matter. The opinions given Jo from the West Riding of Yoiks, ;■ rl are as follows: — Teats- Excellent cooked fresh, no ■ ~'ud for rehash, currying, etc., and tWle na\oui- after one day cold. Fruit: Not bad. , , . p-fo-v \w<u\. They declare they v ant "bacon not too fat and not too ].- r and thev want bacon that does r.r.r'want half" a pound of dripping in i::e pan to cook it. In our house rothing else would do but Irish roll, j,,,d f tell you it is good. Imperial Bee Honey: Fines, ni me ••■orM: which brings me to butter, hocause one opinion was that they tnought it bhould be put up in pack-■ ;, like the honey, and then they would know what they were getting. Another one was that it snould all to of a uniform colour. Cheese: Well, least said soonest mended One party wrote and asked i-c if we kent all the best stuff here. Thpy reckoned it was like bar soap s-nd looks greasy. Of course, from i;,\- own experience I should imagine v 'is worth finding out just what kind ',; cheeses certain districts like. It

:-• tms to run in districts; some go in for Stilton, some Wensleydale, some Cheddar, some Cheshire, and so on. 1; is strange, but I believe what I am t'llini! vou to be correct. r think Danish bu.'.er gets more of ;< r<jn because it is lighter in colour, ;ir.(l it does not seem to turn so quickly v. warm weather. Of course, they maybe have a hi- advantage in being so near, but 7 do not see why they should, as they have to stall feed their cattle for about five months a year. Personally, I only know butter is it. food, but thought the opinions may jl,e of interest.—Yours, etc., I BUTTER. Wcstport. February i. 1934. iv jar. imtor or the raisa. Sir,—With much interest one has fallowed the correspondence in your columns in regard to the butter market rind prices, and particularly some facts iMid figures supplied by Mr Bliss in Saturday's issue, wherein he states that Lev/ Zealand butter is being sold in 3.inland to-day on a par with mar-•-;aruiL, and that the sales of Danish jr.itlcr had increased for the year ending June 30, 1933, by more than 12,000 ion.-, and that the Danes had maini:incd a comparatively high price for their butter. Unfortunately for the New Zealand ciairv farmer the prices he is receiving am- his butter fat more tnan bear out the statement, whilst the increased. talcs of Danish butter tell us very plainly that New Zealand butter is bein;; rapidly superseded on the British j! arket: and this not by dumping at a jow price as the Danish butter is both j- amtaining a high price and increasi.; :;ly capturing out market, whilst :.\'i v Zealand butter is relegated to competition with margarine, at margarine prices, to effect sales. Suggestions have been made by some correspondents that a delegation be ;-ent to England and Denmark to enquire fully into our faults of marketing, etc. I would seriously suggest ihat we dairy farmers request our factories to invite an accredited business .l-aix to visit New Zealand, inspect our ji'Cthods and advise about the improved placing of our butter on the British market, for the evidence I collected some time ago on a visit to Britain convinces me entirely that it is iot our butter but our method of marketing that is most seriously wrong. Our Prime Minister, I understand, invited Mr Baxter to New Zealand to place before farmers the British farriers' scheme. The time is more than ripe for us dairymen to have placed ■before us a better method of reaching lh<: consumers and would-be consum«r; of Britain with New Zealand butter instead of margarine.—Yours, etc., A. M. CARPENTER. H'ernside, February 5, 1931