BUTTER AND CHEESE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2762, 2 October 1923, Page 5

BUTTER AND CHEESE.

SMALL SUPPLIES AT HOME

MARKET FIRM, PRICES ADA'ANCING.

[By Electric Cable—Copyright.]

[Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.] LONDON, September 30.

The butter market gets stronger every day. Actual stocks of best butter held here are very small, and for the next two months but little can arrive from Australia and New Zealand.

Danish production is rapidly decreasing, arrivals from there being now only a little more than half what they were in the summer. Therefore, the British market is faced with a shortage of supplies. The general expectation is that prices will harden still further.

Retailers will probably raise their price to 2/-, but it is not expected that this increase will have much effect on the consumption. .

Tho cheese position is very strong. New Zealand i 3 practically cleared from importers' hands, and there is only one small lot still to arrive. English and Scottish make was sold out six weeks earlier than at this time last year, and has mostly been consumed by, now. Canadian stocks here and in Canada are estimated at about the same as last year. The market there is very firm, prices advacing, British consumption is estimated at about 300,000 fullsized cheeses monthly, and a considerable shortage is probable for tht> next two months, so prices for Canadian a.nd any New Zealand held over are expected to harden. (CANADIAN COMPETITION. With respect to Canadian competition, on the authority of Mr .1. A. Ruddick, Dairy Commissioner, it may be stated that the exports of that country for 1922, totalled 133,849,760 pounds of cheese, of which 125,942.940 went to the United Kingdom, and 2,969,759 to the United States. Also 3,091,026 to Belgium. The butter exported totalled 8,430,591 pounds, of which 3,713,709 went to the United Kingdom and 3.032,939 to the United States. Incidentally Mr Ruddick thinks 'The Argentine may yet be a factor to be reckoned With in the butter trade. Before the war the average, he states, exported to Great Britain was 10 million pounds annually; it averages over 30 millions per annum for the pas.t five years. The quality is improving all the time owing to strenuous efforts of Argentine butter makers. South Africa's contribution is small at present. Mr Ruddick rema.<ks on "the negligible quantities,"but also on the "very fine quality" of South African butter.