SINGLE BRAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 166, 16 July 1942, Page 6

SINGLE BRAND

SUPPLIES OF BUTTER

DISTRIBUTORS OPPOSED

Efforts have been made in Auckland for some time to market butter for local consumption under a single brand on the lines adopted in the United Kingdom, but the opposition of a leading distributing company, which supplies. 43 per cent of the local market, is said to be delaying operation of the scheme.

Since the zoning plan was introduced in Auckland city and suburbs, various brands, eight in all, have been handled, and when the more well-known lines have been delivered grocers have had to accept the lesser-known butters. The grocers assert that experience in recent weeks has shown that the fixed quota system has proved impracticable and the only solution is the creation of one national brand. It was learned from the Internal Marketing Department that the Quota system had been decided on in order to preserve, as far as possible, the goodwill and trade of individual distributors, although it was recognised that difficulties had arisen which could bo largely removed by the adoption of a uniform brand and wrap. Elsewhere it was stated that at least three well-known butters under different brands came from the same factory.

One organisation, it was stated which has built up a product the name of which was a household word following years of advertising would resist to the last" any attempt to institute a single brand for all butter.

. Dealers state that actually there is little variation in the qu'alitv of the various butters now under different brands, and one northern factory which sends a small amount or butter to Auckland for local consumption has had the distinction of securing the best grading figures for some years. A request to the Government has been made by the Auckland Master Grocers' Association to institute a universal brand of table butter when existing supplies of wrappers are exhausted. In Encland not only have all brands been scrapped, but butter is distributed through 160 merchants under one management.