DAIRY MARKETS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 99, 24 October 1938, Page 12

DAIRY MARKETS

BUTTER REMAINS QUIET

By Telegraph—Pres3 Association—copyright. LONDON, October 22. The butter market at present is regarded as dependent on Australian weather, with v New Zealand's continued lower production. If rain enables increased production in Australia, prices-will probably suffer. Continental dairy countries, owing to an excellent summer, had good fodder crops, enabling increased production of butter, although the German four-year agricultural plan is not working well. Germany is expected to buy more butter than last autumn at the current lower prices, thus relieving Britain of a proportion of Continental exports, while if the agreement between New Zealand and Germany results in renewed German buying at the end of the year—in connection with which it is understood the two countries are negotiating—it will further relieve the British market. In the meanwhile the butter market is very quiet, with prices showing an easier tendency. The cheese market is easier, with inquiry lacking. MARGARINE V. BUTTER. "Up to 1934 increasing butter consumption was accompanied by a decline in the consumption of margarine, but since that year margarine consumption has tended to increase as the consumption of butter declined."— Imperial Economic Committee's report. It is stated j further that margarine finds its opportunity for expansion in almost exact ratio to the rise in butter prices. Experts incline more and more to the view that stabilisation of butter prices, at the true economic leyel must precede any really big drive for increased consumption on nutritional grounds. The actual ratios of butter sales to those of margarine in the years referred to were:—l93o, 8 to 5; 1934, 16 to 5; 1937, 14 to 5. It takes a long time and a low price to recapture lost ground. Margarine interests are making tremendous efforts by way of national advertising to consolidate their gains, basing their efforts on the claim that the new vitaminised margarine is as good as summer-pro-duced butter and has the added virtue of consistency in vitamin-content