BUTTER QUALITY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20634, 14 August 1941, Page 9

BUTTER QUALITY

INFERIORITY DENIED SEASONAL UNEVENNESS MINISTER'S REPLY (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. In an interview, the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. J. G. Barclay, commented on the statements suggesting that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of butter being placed on the local market and which is patted through the Internal Marketing Department. “At the present time,” said the Minister, "it is undoubtedly true that the quality of the butter being placed on the local market is more uneven than during the remainder of the year, but the statement that ‘much of it is not fit to give a dog’ is an absurd exaggeration of the position.” None Below Finest Mi. Barclay said that no butter which was graded below first grade was allowed on the market, and it. therefore, was quite untrue to state that inferior butters were being marketed as first or finest. At the present lime of the year there was not a sufficient quantity of first grade, freshlymade butter available to supply the local market, and the balance had to be made up from withdrawals from the export freezer stock. It had been found over a period of years that certain quantities of butter withdrawn from the freezer at this time of the season and graded as first or finest revealed a tendency to deteriorate slightly after patting. Agricultural scientists were making every effort to overcome this difficulty.” Problem of Industry The Minister emphasised that this tendency was quite beyond the control of the Internal Marketing Division, and was an industry problem long before the department assumed the responsibility of the patting of butter for the Wellington market. “In short, the position is that the local market in New Zealand is supplied during the present months with the maximum quantity of the best, freshly-made butter available, supplemented by the best butter available from export stocks,” said the Minister. “AiW variation in the quality ot butter now being placed on the local market is strictly of a limited and temporary nature and, in the main, the local* market is supplied with the •best quality butter produced by the industry, and every care is taken by the .Internal Marketing Division to ensure that all factors within its control are carefully watched to ma’intain the highest possible standard ”