N.Z. Butter Quality

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 147, 17 March 1933, Page 13

N.Z. Butter Quality

Sir, —I am in receipt of the following letter, dated January 31, from a late resident of Wanganui:—

“It puzzles me how New Zealand butter can be sold in this country for a lid. and a 1/- per lb. Where can there be any profit for the New Zealand farmer alter the cost of packing and freight has been deducted? We .always use the best New Zealand butter and never anything else, for cooking as well as eating, and it is excellent. We recommend it to everyone, and as a matter of fact most of. our friends use it already. /We always get New Zealand cheese too. When I first came here the cheese was always marked ‘American,’ so I said to my grocer, ‘I want New Zealand cheese,’ and he said, ‘Well, this is New Zealand cheese. Madam, but people won’t buy it unless It is American.’ So I said, ‘Nonsense, it is all imagination. You label it British Empire cheese and it will sell just as well.’ ”

As regards marketing New Zealand butter and cheese, is bur present system satisfactory? I fail to see how we can obtain the best results by sending our dairy produce to England on open consignments, as is done at present. It appears to me that the wholesale people handling New Zealand produce are having a real butter and cheese price war among themselves at the New Zealand farmers’ expense.—l am, etc., SPEEDY. Wanganui, March 15.