BUTTER PRICE AND QUALITY

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1934, Page 6

BUTTER PRICE AND QUALITY

(To the Editor.)

' Sir, —As' a. dairy farmer I' am wondering whether we are entitled to get any assistance at all when I see what is taking place. During the past week, London buyers have been offering 9£d for the finest quality bulk butter and 9d for first grade. In spite of this dairy companies in the Auckland district are going to the additional expense of patting their butter and delivering it on the storekeeper's counter at 9d for finest grade and Sd for first grade, and they are now putting a new line on the local,market called "second grade" at 7d per Ib. Yet .we dairy farmers do nothing about it; we allow our companies to do this,'and then ask the Government to give us a subsidy. Meanwhile, I observe that finest grade pat butter is retailing hi Melbourne this week at Is 6|d per Ib.—l am,, etc., A. H. PAEISH. Hairmi, May 7. I (To the . j Sir, —I have read many letters in ihe Press re the price of butterfat received by farmers and they' claim a losin^ proposition all round. Why the retail price of butter ranges ,±'roin 13d in Feilding down to lOdin' other large centres is a conundrum to me. Why this great difference of 25 per cent.? Farmers' representatives are appealing to the Government for a bounty on a price returned to suppliers at Gd per ppuud. Now look at this: 13d paid by tho consumer to the retailer in Feeding. One pound of butterfat makes one. pound and- a quarter of butpot, and this ' makes.slCd the people pay tho retailer per pound: of' butterfat. Can you tell- me, Mr. Editor who gets this profit of, lOd por pound between the supplier."at':Cd per pound butterfat .to the factory and the IGd paid the retailer, over 150 per cent? Butter is retailed in England at 9d per pound. Add. the exchange > 25 per •cent, and tho 25 per cent; of butter from butterfat over ' the pound and the retailor gets 134 d per pound. Another, point to be noted. The dairy farmer gets Ms butter from the factory at 8d per.pound for his own hoino'use, and this is CO per cent. Jless than the public pay tho storekeeper. ■ Why have the consumers of this district to pay 25 per cent. ..ore than some centre's considering Foilding is in the centre of the best dairy land in New Zealand and, adjacent to tho several factories surrounding it? We have heard of complaints from factories in this district because butter was sent here for sale from long distances, and at 3d per pound difference—£2B. per tori—there is a great inducement.—l am, etc., UNEMPLOYED. (To the Editor.) ■ Sir) —lt is reported that the estimate of the production of butter for the 1933-34 season is 168,500 tons, of which, only 28,500 tons are expected to be sold in New Zealand, and this latter will be partly made up of second grades and also whey butter. All butter sold in New Zealand is allowed to. contain 16 per cent, of water besidcs'salt; whilst the quantity of water allowed in export grades is oniy 1 per cent; less, salt also being allowed in a reasonable and palatable quantity. In 140,000 tons of butter there would bo . 21,000 tons of water. Now it appears to the writer that in this vast quantity of cheap liquid thdrc may be certain defects, as he has never heard i of tho water content of'butter being' sterilised for instance,/and the water from- thousands of sources is used in tho manufacture our butter for export and otherwise. As Teal competition has now started in earnest, it behoves the leaders of the industry to investigate this and make' a further effort to improve the quality "of at least our export grades. As to- the "sprcadability" (or rather "unspreadability") of New Zealand butter we hear so much about from England, as compared with Danish, a further suggestion might also be made—that the quantity of water allowed in export butter bo reduced to, say, 10 por cent, or even 5 per cent. A better product— less icy and hard—may be the result.— I am, etc., BEIXUS.