HOLDING UP BUTTER

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 8

HOLDING UP BUTTER

TOOLEY STREET OPINION,

(FROM OUIt OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 9th July.

Dairy companies which in April put & reserve of 180 a on their stocks of butter in London have had their sanguine hopes realised. At the time the reserve was considered far too high, but the price has gone steadily up from 166s a cwt in April to as much as 1965. The reason for the rise is .put down to the dry weather throughout tho Northern Hemisphere. The Irish supply has been curtailed this season, too, by as much as 30 to 40 per cent. That is due to a loss of stock during last winter. Siberian is not coming forward so plentifully. A good deal of 6toring, however, has been going on of late apart from the big quantities of colonial.already placed in cold store.

Those responsible for selling New Zealand butter in Tooley street find the reserves put on the produce by New Zealand owners a senoua handicap to tho smooth running of their business. It is probably doubtful whether the owners in New Zealand fully realise what their con-, trol means. Storage charges nro mounting up all the time, and the happy realisation of hopes, as at the present time, does not often occur; Another result of long storage is often forgotten. All the time the butter is deteriorating in quality, and more and more buyers are getting into the habit of offering the market price for freshly landed butler. They say: "We offer 190 a for your butter/but "we don't wnnt any that lms been stored for more than a month." In addition, of course, lht> reputation of the New Zealand product suffers through over-storage."