BUTTER PRICES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 December 1924, Page 5

BUTTER PRICES

REDUCTION IN AUCKLAND

COMPLAINT FROM OPOTIKI,

DECREASED PRICE UNJUSTIFIED,

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) OPOTIKI, Dec. 22. In an interview concerning the reduction in the- price iof butter at Auckland, Mr H. R. Hogg (chairman of the Opotiki Dairy Association) pointed out that his company supplied a large proportion of the butter consumed _in Auckland, and naturally felt sore at the action taken of one big/reduction in prices when apparently there was no good reason for a reduction in view of the state of the English market and offers received by the Opotiki Company quite recently. , , t According to the latest London quotations the f.o.'b. parity for first grade butter is Is 8d per lb. Allowing l|d for local marketing costs, the wholesale price of butter to-day should be Is 9Jd. The New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Company, however, is selling at Is 4fd downwards. Opotiki and some other companies decline to conform to the latest reduction, in which attitude they are supported by the Grocers’ Association. His company objected to basing prices on. suppositions coricerning future values,-' considering the only true basis for ; local prices was the London parity. For many years the butter committee fixing Auckland prices worked on this basis.

Mr Hogg added that it was unfortunate that- one co-operative company, in endeavouring to obtain control of the Auckland market, should make reductions so seriously affecting its own'suppliers as well as other, dairy producers.