THE CHEESE TRADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23191, 10 November 1938, Page 10

THE CHEESE TRADE

Anxiety lest New Zealand should, owing to various causes, lose her special place in the British cheese market has often been expressed in recent years, and the whole subject is again canvassed in the Dairy Board's report issued yesterday. The board considers there ,is a risk that many small cheese factories may be forced out of production because of the higher costs and the loss of the skim milk to the farmer. Certainly the switch-over to butter began to assume a serious aspect, but the trend appears to have been checked by the Government's action in raising the premium on butterfat for cheese to 2d. Last season, for instance, the decline in production was less in the case of cheese than of butter. In the current season, moreover, cheese output to the end of September fell by only .07 per cent, a negligible fraction, while butter was down by 16.5 per cent. Hence the relationship between the ; two products appears to have at I least been stabilised. If the proporI tions are held in future, the result can be regarded with satisfaction. ! New Zealand cannot afford to move j out of the cheese market, where she : holds a dominant position, and jostle j to hold a placli among a crowd of | competitors in the butter market. | Reports that the consumption of cheese in Britain was decreasing have been proved by the board's inquiries to be unsupported by statistics or distributors' experience. Its report contains three interesting reports from merchants on the cheese trade, showing that the demand continues steady and sustained, the chief change being the tendency for less cheese to be sold in bulk and more in small fancy packets under proprietary names. Advertising of these brands, according to one merchant, is so stimulating consumption that the British public is "becoming more cheeseminded" and he believes an increase of imports up to 10 per cent would not-materially prejudice prices. Here is a responsive market that New Zealand should not fail to cherish.