Public try to beat butter rise

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 6

Public try to beat butter rise

Butter is scarce but margarine supplies are holding, according to Christchurch grocers who stoically face a rush on butter as customers beat Sunday’s 10c price rise.

“I’d like to shoot the Government for announcing it beforehand,” said Mr K. Collins, of Collins Food Store, in Cranford Street. “It was a bit silly.” Mr Collins and other retailers said yesterday that they had been rationing butter since the announcement of the price rise a week ago. There had been little extra demand for margarine in spite of one line’s having recently risen in price. Most margarine comes from Auckland, where a strike by refrigerator drivers last week has curtailed supplies.

In Christchurch, the Tai Tapu Dairy Company, which supplies butter from the Rakaia River in the south, Parnassus in the north, and west to the Alps, has been struggling to keep up with the increased demand in the last week.

The company’s secretary (Mr G. H. Tilson) said yesterday that the demand was as high in country areas as in Christchurch, and it was “very difficult” for the staff to keep up with it. Persons storing big quantities of butter for a long time might have problems with its quality. “If they store it haphazardly, alongside fruit or smoked sausages, for example, it could be easily contaminated,” Mr Tilson said.