EMPIRE BUTTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21647, 18 May 1932, Page 11

EMPIRE BUTTER

INCREASE IN SALES MARKETING BOARD’S INVESTIGATION. > (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 7. - Evidence that the sale of Empire butter is on the increase appears in a report issued by the economic section of the Empire Marketing Board (H.M. Stationary Office, Is). The report is the second in which a comparison is made between the demand for butter at different times. Nottingham was selected as a soundingboard of butter consumption. It is situated in a “ no-man’s land ” between three camps—the • London area, where Australian and New Zealand butter holds sway; Liverpool, wnere Irish butter enters the country; and the East Coast ports, the stronghold of Danish butter. Perspnal interviews with 181 retailers formed the basis of the report. Between 1928 and 1931 the total imported supplies increased by about 23 per cent.; the greater part of this increase came from Australia and New Zealand. There was also an appreciable increase in supplies from the North European countries, with the exception of the Irish Free State and Russia; During this period the Board of Trade index for wholesale food prices recorded a fall of 28 per cent., while the wholesale prices of best quality New Zealand and Danish butters fell by 38 per cent, and 35 per cent, resepctively. Between 1928 and 1931 the average retail price of butter in the shops visited fell from approximately Is 9d per lb to Is 3d per lb. Over the same period, the weekly sales of butter in these shops increased from 458 cwt to 520 cwt ,or by 15 per cent. The proportion of these sales taken by Empire butters rose from 24 per cent, to 27 per cent. While butter sales increased by 68cwt per week the sales of margarine decreased by 34dwt. FALL IN PRICE. In 1928 and 1931 respectively packethd butter averaged 3d per lb and 2d per IB more than the general average for bulk butters. Danish was the highest-priced of the prinicpal imported butters, with an average price of Is 9d per lb in 1928 and Is 3d per lb in 1931. Empire butters also fell in price by about 6d per lb, the average price of New Zealand being Is B|d in 1928 and Is 2d in 1931, while the corresponding prices of Australian were Is 74d and Is respectively. The price of English farm butter was above that of all the imported bulk butters, but this butter was seldom found in the retail shops visited. As between the two surveys, there was a pronounced tendency for both independent and multiple shops to stock a larger variety of types of butter. At both times Danish was the most widely stocked, with packeted butter almost as commonly stocked in independent shops, and with New Zealand taking second place to Danish in multiple shops. • All these butters were rather more extensively stocked in 1931. The greatest proportionate increase, however, was in Australian butter. In 1928 it was stocked in 8 per cent, of the shops, but in 1931 this figure had incerased to 15 per cent, and the change was equally apparent in both independent and multiple shops. There was also a considerable increase in the number of multiple shops stocking “bnlkblended” butter. The only butter stocked less frequently at the time of the second survey was Argentine. Sales of Danish butter were by far the greatest of any one type, and accounted for 61 per cent, of the total in 1928 and 58 per cent, in 1931. There was a definite increase in the sales of Empire butters, Australian increasing by 44 per cent, and New Zealand by 25 per cent. Empire butters as a proportion of the total increased from 24 per cent, to 27 per cent. Sales of “ bulkblended ” butter also increased appreciably, but there was a fall in the sales of Argentine. Sales of packeted butter remained constant, hut were very small in relation to the number of shops in which this butter was stocked.