BUTTER’S RIVAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4194, 9 June 1939, Page 2

BUTTER’S RIVAL

MARGARINE ON BRITISH MARKET. This week’s cable news that Australian producers are alarmed at the increasing use of margarine, which is displacing butter on the market, and their asking for a commission to investigate the relative values of the two foods draw attention to the fact that New Zealand butter is always faced with margarine as a serious rival whenever its price is at a level which causes the consumer to think that he is getting very little extra for the bigger outlay. Few peonle in New Zealand are aware of the enormous amount of margarine consumed in Britain. This product is a serious rival to butter and the New Zealand article has to meet steadily increasing competition. How great that competition may be is evident in observations made recently in London by Mr Albert van den Bergh, chairman of van den Berghs and Jurgens, Ltd., London. Mentioning a popular brand of margarine retailing at 8d per lb in the United Kingdom, he said sales had reached a record height. The company had also been highly successful, he said, in marketing other grades, “those grades of margarine which are particularly suited to consumers with limited incomes. Here again we have been able to establish trade on a branded line. 4d and 5d PER POUND. “The housewife quickly appreciates the unwritten quality guarantee which she gets with every branded article she buys, and when at 5d per pound she can purchase margarine, containing vitamins A and D, she has not hesitated to avail herself of the opportunity, and sales have been fully maintained in spite of se vere competition from lower-priced lines. Where necessary this competition has been met by the introduction of a new brand which sells to the consumer at 4d per pound. This has been the means of retaining to your company business which might otherwise have been lost to the competition referred to, and although one brand has only been on the market since November. It has proved a useful and popular addition to cur range of products.” NET PROFITS OVER £1,000,000, Net profit? of the company for the year were stated to be £1,140,929; preference stock required £297,625, and a dividend of 12i per cent per annum on ordinary stock absorbed £656.250, leaving a surplus of £187,054.