MILK AND CREAM

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1937, Page 8

MILK AND CREAM

SUMMER PRICES FIXED

The prices Ho be charged for milk and'cream during the summer months, from December 2, were fixed by the City Council yesterday afternoon. The price cf milk is a halfpenny more per quart than last year. The prices will be Cd a quart for bottled milk retail and Is 7d a gallon for bulk .milk wholesale. The retail price of cream, will be 5d a quarter- ! pint, lOd a half-pint and Is 8d a pint, end the wholesale price |of cream in bulk will be Is Uid a pint. The quarter.pints of cream remain the same, but there is an increase of Id in the price of halfpint lots and 2d in the price of pint The council recently went to arbitration before' Sir Francis Frazer to decide the price payabje for milk supplied or to be supplied by the organisations supplying the council during the 1937-38 supply year, which commenced on August 16. The effect of j the arbitrator's award is to fix tnei summer basic price at 15.25 d per lbj of butterfat, compared with last years 14d, and the winter price at 28.20 d per 1b of butterfat, compared with v 25.90d J last winter. The butterfat prices payable are based on the Government's guaranteed price for butter and cheese of the finest quality. The added value payable throughout, the supply year, compensating farmers for the difficulties and disadvantages of supplying milk to a city a's against supplying factories, is 3d a gallon, as compared with 23<J last year, the increase in added value being proportionate to the increase in the butterfat payments as compared with last year. • In reply to a question the general manager of the Milk Department, Mr. R. E. Herron, said that the .formula upon which the new prices had been fixed was the same as the basis used previously, but the guaranteed price had resulted in raising the price paid to farmers supplying the department. The supplying farmers were paid an added value to compensate them for the loss of by-products (farmers who supplied, to factories-had returned to them skim milk), the additional trouble and cost of maintaining a winter supply, the less average yield from herds prepared for winter supply, twice daily delivery, and the high standard required in the whole milk supply.

The chairman of the committee, Councillor L. MeKenzie, said that the Prime Minister had indicated that the Government might have to raise the guaranteed price on account of the high prices in London, and the de* partment's prices gave a sufficient margin to meet that extra cost should it arise, but if that position did not arise the department would be able to give a rebate in the prices for the coming winter season.