DAIRY PRODUCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 227, 23 August 1935, Page 11

DAIRY PRODUCE.

BRITISH TASTES. EFFECT ON MARKET. “There are quite a number of vague and sometimes erroneous ideas of bow New Zealand’s produce is dealt with in England before it reaches the consumer,” remarked Air AA’. S. Foley, oF Alessrs Foley Bros., Tooley Street. London, in addressing the annual meeting, yesterday, of the Kairanga Dairy Company suppliers. Air Foley, the representative of one of the company’s London agents, gave an outline of the development of the demand for butter in England and the place New Zealand produce held in that demand. The speaker was introduced bv the chairman of directors (Air J. Devine), who also thanked him at the close of the address.

Prior to about 1880 the general populace of England did not eat Flutter. Mr Foley seFd W-"-

tion and fast shipping services came the development oi the overs as i, industry and its growth between 1860 and 1914. In tlie north of England the early purchasers had regarded Danish butter as the only butter worth buying. Tlie blender bad produced a soft-textured full-flavoured butter which bad led to a stabilisation of tastes in the south. “However, under the rationing scheme during the AA’ar the masses of the people, came to know what true butter was. After the AA’ar tho position became.the same again as in 1910-14 when butter had been regarded as the prerogative of the wealthy. So there became evident again the demand for Danish butter in the north of England and blended butter in tlie south. The growth of the chain stores liad helped the New Zealand butter producer, because these stores, desirous of standardising 'their products, found that the New Zealand product, as a type, was the best standardised. In the north of England New Zealand butter was not regarded as highly as the Danish, because it was not of the same texture, the people having come to regard the Danish product as the best procurable. In the south of England there was also to be found the difficulty of the people regarding blended butter as being the best. British stores, however, were only interested in an article as far as they could sell it again, and were not unduly interested in keeping up quality or building up a demand to provide a premium. Cheese was also sold through _ the chain stores, said the speaker. There had been a change, though, in .the method of feeding of tlie working people. Tlie big factories now provided cafetarias where the employers could secure a midday meal, and thus there disappeared the consumption of cheese by the working man as a dinner food. To-day New Zealand cheese was sold as a commodity throughout England, that underwent the competition of other foods also stocked by the chain stores. Under tlie new order it bad a quicker turnover and returned a larger price when compared with the counter price at which it was sold when disposed of through the warehouses as formerly. The difference between the price paid by the English housewife and that paid to the New Zealand producing companies waR now very close. 3d for butter and 2d for cheese. That was a very fine margin. There were several tilings that were apt fo lie forgotten, continued the speaker. One was that there was a limit to what a person could eat. The public of England now had a very balanced diet and they had available manv kinds of articles in which they could take their milk products—tinned milk, dried milk, fresh milk, process cheese, fresh cheese, and butter, besides others. For the benefit of New Zealand the English public had now to be educated to take their milk ration in the form of butter. In New Zealand the consumption of butter was alxnit 40 pounds a head per year, and it was often said that tlie English public could consume the same amount. But it had to be recognised that in New Zealand the cheese consumption was practically noil-existent, whereas the English consumer had a more balanced diet.