"DEVON VALE BLEND"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1933, Page 7

"DEVON VALE BLEND"

BUTTER IMPOSITION

COMPANY . HEAVILY , FINED

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, February 21. ',' One of the most deliberate and worst cases ever presented at this Court" is what the chairman of the Baling Police Court described a case dealing with the salo of butter. Fines amounting to £.44 and 10 guineas costs were imposed on Green's Farm. Dairies, Limited, West End Farm, Northolt. . Seven summonses against the firm alleged that they possessed butter not made up in prescribed quantities; misrepresented the weight of butter; .offered for 'sale, sold, and exposed foreign butter without any mark of tho country of origin; blended butter in unregistered premises; and used the description." "Certified" and "Grade A milk without being by the Minister of Health. Mr. B. A. Eobinson, for tho Middlesex County Council, said that Siberian and Australian butter were blended and offered for sale in wrappers which, bore the inscription "Choicest creamery butter. Product of the finest pastures in the world. Devon Vale blend. Absolutely pure." Other packets bore tho inscription "Choice creamery butter. Absolutely pure," and they were marked with an Empire stamp. The butter was short in weight, and was blended in premises not registered as a butter factory." Invoices showed that in three weeks two tons of Siberiaji butter and the same quantity of Australian butter were used. Milk was also sold in bottles which purported that the firm was licensed by the Ministry of Health to sell certified milk, but no such licence had been granted. "This company," added Mr. Eobinson, "seem to hold themselves out as cow-keepers and dairymen of the highest class, carrying on a scientific and magnificent business with every possible precaution, and with a reputation second to none. Is it not scandalous that Eussian butter should be mixed with Australian and put on the market with tho representation that it had come from the finest pastures in the world, and was of Devon Vale blend?" Mr. L. Eeckitts, for tho defence, said that the butter was short in weight through the negligenco\ of employees. A licence had been applied for to sell certified milk. He contended that tho summons for the blending of butter in unregistered premises was merely a technical one. The public did not care, ho .floclfircrl, whether butter came from Australia c.r Russia, so long as they got their moneys worth. , I