Butter Consumption

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7063, 24 January 1933, Page 6

Butter Consumption

Cabled advice in to-day’s issue shows that while the price of butter has reached an almost record low figure, there has been one very remarkable feature of the year’s trading—Britain’s ability to absorb enormous quantities. It seems amazing in such hard times as the Motherland is going through, that butter consumption should have reached the colossal figure of 522,500 tons for 1932. The average consumption in 1931 was 7325 tons per week, which increased in 1932 to 7700 tons, and it is estimated that during the last two months it averaged 8200 tons per week

The report quoted adds : “The outlets are continually expanding, particularly in the Midlands and North England, so that it can now be said that Empire butter is selling in practically every city, town and village in the United Kingdom.”

Even if prices are ruinously low for the time being, no more publicity campaign for our produce could be conceived than this practical demonstration of its valuh as a food. Once the average Briton gets the taste for butter, he will, when good times return, be a permanent customer even at higher prices. The consumption figures already quoted are the moi’e remarkable when compared with those of 10 years ago, when the total import was only 188,781 tons. There was a sharp rise to 277,889 tons in 1925., a total that was not exceeded until 1929,

The three great suppliers are Denmark, New Zealand and Australia, these countries accounting for nearly 80 per cent, of the 1932 total. The New Zealand supplies have steadily increased from 78,504 tons in 1930, to 96,750 tons the following year and 109,517 tons last year. But Australia has achieved the greatest expansion in the dairy industry, her deliveries for the last three years having been 47,577, 77,931 and 91,462 tons. Yet British consumption has practically kept pace with the expanding output. It,rose from under 151 b. per head in 1924 to over 201 b. in 1931, and is still growing. Lower prices have made this possible, but although these lower prices have been the natural and inevitable consequence of heavy supplies, they have also added thousands to the ranks of butter consumers iaJkiUia.