N.Z. Cheese Selling Well At Expo 70

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 9

N.Z. Cheese Selling Well At Expo 70

(By KEN COATES, winner ofthe Mobil Overseas Travel Award, 1970) OSAKA. If the demand for cheese is any indication, New Zealand might sell a great deal of butter to Japanese people at the Dairy Board’s two shops at Expo 70. The'specially packed butter will not arrive until about April 10. The two shops have- done a roaring trade in the first week. Several times, cheese in segments in circular packs has sold out. “Most encouraging,” is how the Dairy Board's chief executive officer in Japan, Mr David Main, describes sales. “The round trays of flavoured cheese in segments are most popular,” he said. “Supplies supposed to last to the end of April have already gone, but more is now available."

Explaining the delay in the arrival of the butter, Mr Main said this was mainly due to the development in New Zealand of special gold foil wrapped packs for Expo. These were in attractive quarter-pound packs and two quarter-pound packs in cardboard boxes. These had to be approved by health authorities, and this had now been gained. There was a delay in the arrival of New Zealand butter for the Meat Board’s Geyser restaurant, but this came on March 22. At times the Japanese are

fighting, to buy New Zealand cheese and ice cream. When I called at the small Dairy Board shop in the international bazaar it was like a Japanese train at rush hour, and Miss Pene Brunker, of Kaitaia, was making heavy going of it, fighting through the crush to get change. : “It is not so bad if we can keep the crowd out of the shop,” she , said. “But 1 can manage;” As a, solid wall of people converged on her, ■ I wondered. At the other shop, on the north side of the Expo site, business was still brisk, but quieter. Miss Elaine Good, of Matangi, Waikato, confirmed that the Japanese were rushing the processed cheese and also the blue vein cheese. Just how much should be read into this buying is difficult to judge. The Japanese have a passion for Western

luxury goods. For example they are paying 7900 yen for; a bottle of Johnny Walkey black label whisky (or SUS 22) at the British shop. < 1 asked one of the Japanese; assistants working at the shop, Miss Motoko Yoshitake, about the rush on cheese. “I was rather surprised myself,”; she said. “I never imagined it: would be so busy.” “But many people Want to! buy a souvenir for their family, and they like things that are imported and 1 foreign.” . However, my hosts in Kyoto, a Japanese family, like the New Zealand family, like the New Zealand cheese and once they have bought 'it and taken it home, other Japanese who have' visited Expo could well develop a taste for a product that we excel in nroducine.