THE MARKETING OF DAIRY PRODUCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21390, 18 July 1931, Page 16

THE MARKETING OF DAIRY PRODUCE

TO TUI EDITOR. Sir,— The -letter in your issue oT This morning signed by “ Sane Marketing Conditions” was surely written by one who has little or no knowledge of the conditions obtaining in .the marketing ot dairy produce, or else it was written by one who has an axe to grind, and in his anxiety to create a false impression has, in his letter, departed from the truth. Your correspondent states that Mr Goodfellow “announced that Amalgamated Dairies:, would cease to_ exist.”_ Thisstatement exists .purely in the imagination of your correspondent, because it. does, hot appear in your report. Your correspondent stated further “that Mr Goodfellow "established Amalgamated Dairies to continue selling under the system of price fixing which previously—and almost entirely due to his lead—nearly broke up the Dairy Control Board. Now, after some three years of a trial of this absurd system of his, he has had to admit failure.” This statement of your correspondent is somewhat on a par with the previous statement. I feel sure that your correspondent, is well aware, as everyone who takes an intelligent interest in the marketing of our butter and cheese is aware, that the policy of the organisation of which Mr Goodfellow is managing director has been in operation for, I think, some 10 or 12 years, and one has yet to learn that the policy is to be alwndoned. . . , Dairymen thv ‘"diout the Dominion know the story of the “ battle of the breeds” in cattle —whether the Jersey is a better cow than the Ayrshire, and so on. This battle of the breeds later developed into the “ battle of the yields when the ability of a factory manager was judged not on the quality of the cheese manufactured, but on the number of pounds of cheese that could be made from Hb of butter-fat. This battle eventually led to the illegal manufacture of standardised cheese (subsequently legalised), and culminated in the present most unsatisfactory position in regard to cheese. The latest battle is between Tooley street agents, and is one of “ competitive prices.” The agents know that they,are judged against the competitive price given by another agent to a neighbouring factory, and that if their prices are not competitive they know there is little chance of retaining the business for the, following year. Some Tooley street houses in their endeavours to hold their trade have, therefore, adopted methods that have gained for them the title_ of “ quick quitters”—agents who quit quick, and in quitting knock down the prices—who are more concerned about getting a competitive price til a n getting the value of the goods they have for sale. It is estimated that these methods have resulted in a loss of some £1,500,000 to New Zealand dairy farmers this last season, and it was these chaotic conditions existing in the industrv that caused Mr Goodfellow to decide that Amalgamated Dairies, Ltd., and tbe New Zealand Co-op. Dairy Company should not be a party to such tactics, and that in future Amalgamated Dairies and Empire Dairies would suspend operations go far as outside companies are concerned, and not, as your correspondent would make you say, “ cease to exist.” No doubt the wish was father to the written thought. .-‘Far from ceasing operation Amalgamated Dairies and the New Zealand Co-op. Dairy Company, Ltd., will continue the policy of the past 10 or 12 years. . A majority of dairymen in Dominion realise that no man in New Zealand has done as much for the industry as Mr Goodfellow, and had the Dairy Board persevered in the policy of marketing adopted by it there would, indeed, have been no need, as your correspondent states, to talk to-day of the marketing conditions being chaotic. . The marketing conditions would undoubtedly nayc developed into a co-ordinate and rational scheme, and dairy farmers would have been many millions of pounds sterling better off than they are to-day.—l am, etc., ’ Cheese. July 10.