Margarine Industry

Northland Age, Volume 4, Issue 12, 21 December 1934, Page 8

Margarine Industry

If the margarine industry was abolished it was very doubtful if the dairy industry would benefit to any considerable extent through a largely-* increased demand arising for lowgrade butter, stated the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. C. E. Macmillan) at the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board conference. The abolition of the industry would be inclined to increase the importation of bakers’ compounds, confectionery fats and vegetable butters, which were cheaper than butter, and came under the heading of “cocoa-butter and other vegetable butters or fats.” Mr. Macmillan pointed out that in most countries margarine competed with butter for table use. Its ingredients however differed from those used here, where its manufacture and sale were regulated and the use was prohibited of any milk product or blending with butter, and the addition of any colouring matter. By law, therefore, the industry was compelled to call the product margarine, but it was in fact nothing more than a cooking fat, and did not compete with butter for table use.