BLENDED BUTTER

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1930, Page 15

BLENDED BUTTER

FOREIGN MAKES USED SECRECY OF THE OPERATORS. “SOURCES OF ORIGIN HIDDEN.” ■ -■ ’ ~ | -• • i Allegations that boxes, casks and bar- • rels are s-ystematically destroyed or defaced with the object of concealing the fact that the greater part of the .blended butter sold in. England is of foreign origin, are made by a* committee of the Royal Empire Society, which is endeavouring to encourage, the use : of. Empire-produced better. The committee alleges that the labels used on blended packet butter lead the purchaser to believe that he is buying an ’English butter, and for it he pays threepence to fourpence a pound more than for Danish or Empire butter sold in bulk. - . After pointing out that m 1929 the imports of Empire butter fell by 8478 cwt and foreign imports increased by 302,129 cwt, the committee says that it is reliably estimated that about 80,'OOO tone of butter are Mended annually in England, of which about 16,000 tons emanate from Australia and New Zealand. Oi the remaining G 4,000 tons, about 60,000 tons are imported from, foreign countries. < MARKINGS ON' PACKETS. No butter imported from non-Empire sources,, with the exception of Danish and, in some districts, Finnish, hearjn<r the name of . the country of its origin, is to be found in the retail shops, states the committee. On the other hand, a very large trade is done in packeted butters. There are some 25 brands of these, and an examination of the wrapper of any one of them immediately shows that, while they omit actually to state that the butter is English, the use of county names and addresses associated with famous English dairying -districts, accompanied, in many instances, by fancy names and illustrations, must suggest to the ordinary purchaser that he is buying English farm butter. The evidence on which the committee bases its belief in five desire to preserve secrecy regarding the use of foreign butters in blending is set .out in detail. Between Friday, January 10, and Sunday, January 20, visits were paid to 13hut'ter factories and creameries in the Home counties, Devon and Somerset, and, in one ease, in the heart of London, ■with the object of obtaining first-band evidence that the imported batter was actually received there. As a result of

the visits, the agente brought back a considerable collection of butter boxes and casks, or portions thereof, eriginatiim from various South American, Swedish, -Norwegian. Estonian, Latvian, Danish, Auet’ralian and New Zealand dairying' concern®. SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE. “The origin of these casks and boxes is in*most eases beyond question, inasmuch ae they bear the branded names. of the consigning dairy firms/’ the-com- 1 ’in it tee says. “In a few cases, in which all identification marks have been carefully removed, independent evidence was obtained that the firms from whose premises they were secured were, periodically in receipt of imported, butter. . . “The method employed in obtaining the evidence was, in most cases, quite i direct-, and consisted of applying m i person to the office or, empty box depot of the factory for permission to purchase a box or cask for the purpose of despatching goods. In one instance, in the Home counties, point; •blank refusal was, met with and. the inquirer was- told bluntly that, the staff had instructions not tp . give any in-. formation about the origin, of tfie butter sold by the company, In case labels bearing, the words , 'pure Estonian butter’ and ‘pure Latvian butter’ were obtained frqm a parcel of firewood obtained from the. factory by persons ’ living in its vicinity; . This second-hand evidence was, however, supplemented by securing from the adjoining the factory, and, apparently, used for the purpose ’ of breaking up eases' the end 'of an Argentine butter box and the top of an Etonian butter

cask. BULK IMPORTED. ■ •“In some instances, offers were made to ‘elean up’ the boxes or casks- 'by planing off the names and identification marks” but these- offers were, by appropriate excuses, declined.'- In two other cases admission to the empty box store was denied the inquirer and the request for boxes wa« met by the offer of articles from which the identification marks had been removed by planing. In these cases, however, further inquiries were made which went to show that the bulk of the butter used was undoubtedly imported. “Almost without exception great caution in parting with the empty boxes or cases was exercised fcj those in..charge of the empty box department. _ Assurance were required.as to the purposes for which boxes were to be used,,and sometimes the name, was inquired for, and in one instance at least registered. ~ "In the ease of one very large firm arrangements were made with the. con-traetoj-B responsible for removing... th« 'empty '.boxei ’ from, the factory‘ for. the 'qf- a variety

moment the transaction was cancelled, owin<r to the contractor becoming suspicious. He explained his : attitude by stating that under the terms of his con- . tract he was forbidden to part with any case until the identification marks had. 1 been removed. . “Confirmatory evidence concerning the receipt of regular consignments of imported butter was obtained by. inquiries from the local railway goods yarda staff and of persons living in the neighbourhood. A feature of the evidence secured here was the celerity and secrecy-. that were observed in transferring the consignments of imported butter from the (goods yard, to the factory. ■ IMPRESSIONS OF PUBLIC. : “Agents who purchased numerous samples of the packeted butter at various London shops were, in nearly every instance,’ told that it was English. The impression left in some shops was that the assistants themselves genuinely believed that the butter was made from English cream, in others that they were repeating ‘Sales patter’ which they had learnt. One retailer explained, in answer to a question, that •blended’ meant that cream coming from different farms had been Wended in the West Country factory named on thelabel. ? • ■■ ■ •'■ .A;,--“The general effects of the practice which has been described are tliat the public, under the impression that it is ! buying English-blended butter, is paying approximately two . and a-quarter millions more for its packeted . butter than the value of the constituents i justifies and Empire-produced butters are seriously handicapped by the unfair competition of inferior foreign, butters bought by the public, as. superior -English. The struggling home trade is being strangled and the blending factorieg are reaping the harvest the British farmer has sown. The consumption t of British butter has declined accdrdy > ing to Ministry of Agriculture' figures, ' to° little more than 10 per cept. of the i total consumption. Most of this is eoni sumed in the locality where it is made.” c ; Endeavours are being made by the • Royal Empire Society and other bodies t interested to have it made compulsory that all butter labels shall disclose , the country of origin, as was suggested by i the Imperial Economic Committee in its ’ report.