BRITAIN’S DRINK BILL
RETURNS FROM HOUSEWIVES LOW CONSUMPTION OF MILK. There are two opposing schools of thought on the subject of Britain’s low milk consumption. The one ascribes it chiefly to the high cost of milk and advocates cheaper milk or higher incomes, or both. The other says that the most important obstacles are indifference, prejudice, ignorance and fear of disease. Dr. Keith Murray, of the University of Oxford Agricultural Eco-1 nomics Research Institute, comes down heavily on the side of those who do not think price and income to be the chief barriers, in a booklet just published. What evidence that is, he states, suggests that farmers would receive less gross income by cheapening milk and that although milk is 41 per cent, higher than in the pre-war years, consumption has fallen by only 5 to 10 per cent. Householders each spending five to six shillings per head per week differed in their weekly milk purchases per head as much as from less than three and a half pints to more than seven pints; those spending seven to eight shillings per head varied from less than one pint to more than 10 i pints per head. If seven-eighths of a pint per day be taken as the optimum standard, 83 per cent, of the Oxford households fall below it, says Dr. Murray, and to raise the sub-standard rates of consumption would mean an increase of 60 per cent, in milk purchases. He suggests that propaganda and advertisements are probably the most hopeful methods for increasing milk consumption, that far more milk might be used in cooking, and the wider use of milk drinks, such as cocoa, etc. “Extensive advertisements,” he concludes, “may be a better investment than lower prices for a producers’ organisation.”
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Bibliographic details
Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2664, 1 September 1937, Page 2
Word Count
294BRITAIN’S DRINK BILL Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2664, 1 September 1937, Page 2
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