SYNTHETIC BUTTER WAR

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 224, 20 April 1933, Page 2

SYNTHETIC BUTTER WAR

Move to Stop Sales

There is now a ‘‘war” in Australia against the manufacture and sale of margarine, but let it be noted right away that this “war” is not directed against margarine which is made from animal fats, but is against margarine made from other than domestic fats, in other words the dairying industry is out at all costs to protect the manufacture and sale of pure butter against the destructive and damaging sale of synthetic butter.

Beset as if now is with extremely iow butter prices in London, and the move to restrict exports of butter, the dairying industry is now passing through probably the most serious crisis in its existence. It is unfortunate that the manufacturers of genuine margarine, who are no mean ally as a secondary industry to the primary industry in which the grazing of live stock ranks first m importance, should now have to hem in measure’ tin* stigma of the synthetic butter makers whose artificial butter is made from coconut oils and coloured with palm oils. Worse still it will he if the genuine margarine makers should have to endure a slump in their business because of the confusion that now exists in the public mind concerning margarine, and which, no doubt, i\iH become intensified as opposition towards synthetic buffer increases. It is possible that any such reaction may even affect stock values, since domestic fats comprise one of the most valuable of their by-products. Ever since man began to slaughter beasts iu order to provide him with food, so the housewife has been using the fats of these slaughtered animals for culinary purposes. It was not til the blitter industry made its first establishment that butter displaced animal fats to an extent us food for man and became a common base in cookery, confections, etc.; so that even it the manufacture and sale of margarine were completely prohibited, domestic fats would still be used, even as they were used before the manufacturers gave to these fats the trade name of margarine. While margarine continues to m made from animal fats its use can find no justifablc opposition by J ing interests, for margarine W 1 ‘J and fills a want that is quite distinct from the wants that butter tills. The fact is that the butler manufacturers have no quarrel at the piesent time with the inakors of geijunu margarine. And it is m the best >- terests of our stockowners that llu genuine margarine trade should not be harmed while all the guns me 1 ■ ing trained against the unwanted in-dustry-destroying synthetic pioduc . (Country Life.)