N.Z. MARKETING SYSTEM

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22597, 30 December 1938, Page 11

N.Z. MARKETING SYSTEM

VARIATIONS IN PRICE ELIMINATED

BRITISH CONSUMER ENJOYS BENEFIT

(From Our Own Correspondent! LONDON, December 5. The New Zealand system of State marketing for dairy produce, which maintains reasonable prices and regular supplies of butter and cheese to the British public, is commended in a bulletin issued to-day by the Committee Against Malnutrition.

The committee published last July a memorandum over the signatures of Sir John Orr. Sir F. Gowland Hopkins, Dr. Julian Huxley, and others, urging fuller control of the distribution of foodstuffs on behalf of the consumer.

“The grocer can now secure New Zealand butter and cheese at prices which lack the old weekly variations,” states the committee. “The consumer secures a regular supply at reasonable prices, and, consequently, the big fluctuation in the demand for New Zealand and foreign butter which characterised a period of instability of prices is not nearly so apparent.” Formerly, the report adds, marketing was controlled by dozens of competitive firms in Great Britain, some of which were purely speculative, buying at the lowest possible price and selling at the greatest possible profit. Orderly distribution of New Zealand butter and cheese was hampered by buyers of large stocks, who would only release them at times convenient to themselves.

The substitution of orderly marketing, through a score of Tooley Street firms who act on a commission basis—fixed at 2 per cent.—has saved £176,000 in marketing costs of New Zealand produce in this country. This saving is reflected in prices of butter and cheese to the British public. The New Zealand dairy produce marketing system, it is remarked, serves the dual purpose of assuring the farmer an adequate return for his labour and securing for the British consumer (upon whose goodwill and patronage the success of the dairy industry in the Dominion may depend) regular supplies at prices which compare favourably with post-war prices of other foodstuffs.