STRICT BUTTER REGULATIONS IN U.S.A.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1679, 24 October 1925, Page 2

STRICT BUTTER REGULATIONS IN U.S.A.

GOVERNMENT SEIZES 53,000 LBS. IN ONE MONTH. EXCESS OF MOISTURE. Forty-one shipments of butter, the output of thirty creameries located in twelve states, were seized by federal government agents during the month of July. Twenty-two of these creameries were held for shipping butter containing less than the legal amount of but-ter-fat, four were charged with shipping packages which were short in weight, and four others were charged with both misdemeanors. One Oregon creamery was faced with the additional charge of failing to brand the weight on its packages. Six of the creameries are located in Minnesota, five in lowa, four in Wisconsin, three in Illinois, two each in Washington, Oklahoma, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, and one each in North Dakota, Missouri and Nebraska.

July’s activities are considered as being only the start of a systematic campaign on the part of the Government to force creameries to stay within the legal limits of weights and percentage of butterfat. Since the overthrowing of the moisture regulation by the Bureau of International Revenue by the Supreme Court in the socalled Til den case, it is said that there has been an increasing tendency on the part of many creamerymen to load their butter with moisture, in disregard of the federal butterfat requirement and of the fat-and-moisture requirements of the various states. Apparently, federal officials have become convinced that the task of doing away with the manufacture of illegal butter will fall largely upon their own shoulders and it is for this reason that a determined effort to punish violators is said to be planned. No type of creamery was favoured in the July seizure. Co-operatives, centralizers and individually 'own d local plants were all hit. Seizures totalled 585 tubs, 99 boxes, 135 cubes, 34 cases (six of thirty pounds each and twenty eight of 32 pounds each) and 1,821 pounds. In all it is estimated that seizures totalled approximately 53,000 pounds Seizures of tubs ranged from a three-tub shipment to as high as 60 tubs. —Dairy Record.