THE DAIRY. LONDON DAIRY PRODUCE NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1200, 1 March 1895, Page 7

THE DAIRY.

LONDON DAIRY PRODUCE NOTES.

From Our Special Correspondent. London, January 4. BUTTER AND CHEESE. What can be said of the butter market now! I am heartily tired of reporting a rotten state of things in Denmark, but alas ! I cannot change my tune. The weather ha 3 been a little more seasonable this week, but not sufficiently so to help the trade to any great extent. Tc-day, Thursday, you can buy any quantity of finest at 965, and some people would gladly part with what they have on hand at 925. Fully 90,000 boxes were carried over the Christmas holidays, and since then arrivals have totalled close upon 80,000 packages, bringing the total import far the present season into the neighbourhood of 6000 tons from Australasia alone. It will need a good deal of hard weather to bring about a respectable rise in price with over 150,000 boxes of Antipodean still in consignees' hands, and heavy shipments coming in every week. The little hard weather we have had, however, is affecting the Home and Continental supplies, and if snow arid frost continue in good supply there will be a chance for agents to get rid of stocks. They have really had no opportunity of clearing their consignments this year even at ruinous rates, for beyond all question the supply of butter has been tons in excess of the demand—a demand fostered and increased by the reign of exceptionally low prices. Margarine sellers have had a bad time this season owing to the cheapness of butter for all, but the very poorest have eschewed the substitute this year in favour of the real article, which has been obtainable in decent quality at 104 ft j>oun4 aiid even less,.

But the demand has been in no sense equal to the supply, and unless a vevy hard spell of winter weather sets in soon, I.am afraid the cold stores will be as full next May as they were last year.

With trade so dull consignees are making every effort to open up new markets in the provinces, and we shall very soon be able to gauge what quantity of Australasian butter the various provincial centres can take. With such low prices and such excellent quality as is now coming to hand the provincials will have every inducement to "go off" Danish and other Continental produce in favour of Antipodean. You may find some consolation in the hope that a large extension of your trade,may result:from the present unprofitable state of ;- Regarding King Charles' head—l mean the weather,! am afraid not one man in a hundred in Australia has any real conception of the effect it has on the butter tra.le. You can easily understand why a sp?ll of snow and frost enhances the value of Australasian -.butter, for it can only mean the curtailment of Home supplies, and the import from the adjacent countries. But how many of you will accept as a fact the statement that one mild day occurring in a spell of hard weather means in Tooley street a bad day for business? I have pottered about dairy produce for five or six years now and can vouch for the truth of that statement. Only this week Iliad another illustration to the point. On Monday, snow was on the ground and frost was in the air, and oil Tuesday the atmosphere was crisp and wintry, Tooley street was quite busy and my agent friends were too'much occupied with sales to say more to me than " How do" —" Good-bye." On Wednesday the frost was gone and overcoats were

rather nuisances tlian otherwise. Tooley street was as dull as ditch water, with everybody 'quite ready to give me ten, twenty aye, or thirty minutes of their time. VAVhy buyers seem to disappear entirely when dull, mild ■weather sets in - even for a day is a problem I leave'for exporters to try and solve..; It is beyond me, and no agent lias yet put forward a satisfactory explanation of this singular fact.

What little Victoria and New Zealand cheese has come .to hand this season baa been of very fair quality, but, I think, has been carried across the sea at too low a temperature. My personal opinion is that cheese should be carried at not less than 50 deg. Fah. and I believe the condition of conaignments would be greatly improved if exporters could get their stuff carried at a temperature of from 55 deg. to 60 deg. With refrigerating machinery such as we have now I cannot see that it would be difficult for ships' engineers to keen cheese chambers between those figures. ,In fact I once heard a refrigerating engineer boast that he could keep within half a* degree of any tern perature from;3s deg. to 60 deg. The iheese, market is rather dull, but good quaUty Antipodean fetches 48s to 50s, with 2d extra for choice lots.'""'' -"•. -'■■>:•''■':'■""

I am sorry to learn that one or two firms of commission agents of good standing have recently gone in for buy- • ing in the colonies on their own account. They have been forced into this f.o.b. business because having enlarged their premises and added to their staff in order to be in aposition to cope with their increasing consignments, they suddenly found themselves left by consignors who had been persuaded to part with their produce to buyers ;, in, the colonies. Of course these firms will continue to act in the commission agent capacity pure and simple for those exporters who prefer to risk the market chances to accepting a price at the factory door, and this is what I don't like about their new departure. Let them try as they may to act fairly by their customers in the colonies, they will inevitably give preference in selling to the produce in w.liich their own money is ut stake. , Tins ; would hardly matter when trade in butter and, cheese is brisk and prices on the up grade, but it becomes a serious matter when " t'other way round " is the case, j A day or two delay in clearing a.consignment may mean a loss of 53 or even 10s a cwt on butter, and a couple of shillings on cheese. In reality a commission agent who is also a buyer f.o.b. becomes an active trade rival to }iiß clientele _ of consignors, with this trump card in his favour, that he can to a great extent hold back his "on <jonsignnient "-■ produce till his own itiiff has been 1 cleared. -

> MESSRS REYNOLDS AND CO. In a few days the Borough will know "The New Zealand Produce Depot'Mno more. Mr Henry Reyj nolds has found by experience that the butter buyer's walk is Tooley street, and that he cannot be coaxed out of his pernicious habit of centring his custom in that unlovely locality. So Mr Reynolds finding the buyer won't go to him at 30, Borough, has made arrangements to entertain him at 29, Tooley street. The premises taken are a great improvement on those occupied by the " Anchor Brand " in the Borough, and consist of two chambers, one on a level with the street and the other below, with a combined floor space equal to about 2500 square feet The office room is on the floor above. The premises have a frontage to Tooley street of about 25 feet, and all loading |

and unloading operations can be per- , formed from a side entrance. The premises are very contiguous to Hays' wharf, so that Mr Reynolds need not keep much butter on his floors during sultry weather since he can at a moment's notice get whatever he wants for sale out of the refrigerating chamber recently added to the wharf. I am glad to see this shift, for I have always held that Tooley street is the best distributing centre in London for colonial dairy produce, not even barring Smithfield. Some other people seem to think so too, judging by the number of firms which have opened there during the last two years.