BUTTER IN PATS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4810, 18 February 1936, Page 8

BUTTER IN PATS

METHODS IN BRITAIN. A statement that if Australia undertook extensive packing of butter in pats in England it would antagonise a large volume of business done by the country's best customers under their own brands was made by Mr. H. E. Handbury, a member of the Australian Dairy Produce Export Board, In a report of his investigations on the United Kingdom butter markets. The difficulty in obtaining Australian pat butter as such in retail shops, throughout the United Kingdom was due to the retail distributors, large and small, packing the butter under their own registered brands. In the distribution of pat butter under these registered brands, the butter was distributed daily, and if unsold in 48 hours was returned to the pat butter depot and reissued next day under another brand at a cheaper price. "In my opinion," Mr. Handbury continued, "it is far better to have these multiple shop people as buyers rather than antagonise the goodwill of their registered pat brands. Some of these registered pat brands are generations old and household words as far as British consumers are concerned. Most of these pats are straight Australian or New Zealand butters, but some are the establishment of national experimental dairies," Mr. Handbury" added. "I am convinced that if the Commonwealth Government gave a lead in this matter such action would be followed with outstanding advantage to the dairying industry throughout Australia. The practice and theory of milk and cream treatment and butter manufacture could then be developed upon practical and scientific lines—thus insuring a continuous improvement in quality of butter and cheese we manufacture for markets overseas.

"If our own people did not decry the efforts of our butter industry in Great Britain it would reflect greater credit on travellers who return from abroad and lessen the handicap in marketing our produce overseas," concluded Mr. Handbury. "An outstanding need at present is blends of Australian and New Zealand, while a group of factories in New Zealand and a group in Australia, to a lesser degree, are patting their own butters. This may be all right for these factories, but I would not recommend Australia as a whole to j enter upon this enterprise."

Mr. Handbury said that he was convinced the policy that should be adopted with butter was to ship direct to the consuming centres. He was satisfied that quite a good deal of the expense of transit to the English Midlands, and still more to Scotland, was borne by the Australian producers and could be avoided by shipping direct, more especially to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. Arrivals required to be regulated and also continuity of supply assured.