LOCAL MARKETING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 151, 23 December 1938, Page 15

LOCAL MARKETING

THE NEW REGULATIONS

For the fourteen-months period covered by the report the accounts of the Internal Marketing Division show a trading profit of £6804.

The report states that the regulations had smoothed out many of the anomalies which have existed for years past in wholesale butter distribution.

"Every wholesale purchaser is now enabled to buy on the same basis," it continues. "This has prevented the drastic price-cutting, both by factories and retailers, which, has occurred in the past. Another factor is that of the quality available to the New Zealand consumer. Previously it had been the practice of some manufacturers to export their higher grading and pack' the lower grading butter for local consumption A system of payment by grade under the regulations has now made it an advantage to pack a highgrade butter for New Zealand consumers, and in this connection the division has received and appreciated the co-op*ation of the dairy industry "The effect of the regulations has been to eliminate a practice which in the past has been the cause of much unnecessary expenditure by the dairy industry. The local market has been divided into seven zones or areas within which, under normal conditions, the supply of butter manufactured is sufficient to meet the demand, and manufacturers in one marketing district are not permitted to forward their butter into another district without permission in terms of the regulations. Previously, the whole of New Zealand was an open market for every . manufacturer, and much uneconomic transfer of butter took place, particularly from the northern portion of New Zealand to southern for the purpose of capturing markets in other areas. Apart from the unnecessary haulage costs, this practice was the cause of market disorganisation. The division has, of course, made the necessary provision for supplying butter to areas which, in their period of low production, are unable to manufacture sufficient butter to meet their local demand. This has been done in the most economic manner possible, after an investigation into the relative costs -of storage and transport. "Another practice which affected the retailing A butter was the habit of dairy-factory suppliers purchasing quantities of butter at prices even lower than wholesale rates and supplying neighbours and friends at prices below that at which recognised retailers were enabled to purchase. This position has been rectified to the point where retailers only are enabled to purchase at wholesale rates, although suppliers to a dairy factory may purchase sufficient quantities for their own requirements ai the fixed wholesale price. Similar practices existed in the cities, where groups of individuals purchased a 1 wholesale rates and distributed amongst their own members, thus depriving genuine resellers oi part of their livelihood "Another mat 4-r to which attention has been given is the question of butter brands. Butter for consumption in

New Zealand ha in tin. past, been packed under hundreds of different brands, in many instances the same dairy factory packing its butter in ten. twenty, or even more different wrappers. At the present time only a manufacturer's or licensed distributor's registered brand may be used for any one quality of butter." The report also deals with the local marketing of eggs and egg-pulp, fruit, maize, arid bobby calves.