PROFITS FROM MARGARINE.

Waipa Post, Volume V, Issue 216, 30 May 1913, Page 4

PROFITS FROM MARGARINE.

DIVIDEND OF 2l2 l / 2 PER CENT.

The extraordinary profits derived from margarine were disclosed in the statement of accounts presented to the shareholders of the Maypole Dairy Co., Ltd., at the annual meeting in London recently. The profits of this company have trebled in the last five years, amounting in 1912 to over £550,000, from which deferred shareholders received a dividend of no less than 212L2 per cent. In addition to such handsome dividends the reserve fund has been built up to the respectable figure of £620,000. Even granting expert management and highly-developed organisation, says an exchange, a large portion of these phenomenal profits remain unaccounted for from an everyday business point of view. It would seem that the margarine trade is being revolutionised. With or without reason, there has long existed a strong prejudice against this article. Probably the cause has been the fancied or real objection to the use of animal fats in its preparation, although many brands of margarine are quite indistinguishable from real butter, both in appearance and taste to the customer. But the Maypole Company attributes a large measure of its success to a new departure in manufacture. It has replaced animal fats with nut fats, thus deferring to the popular imaginative taste. The enormous trade

of this company may be estimated when it is stated that it has open about 800 establishments for the sale of its products, the manufacture of which entails a daily consumption of 50° l° ns °f nuts.