ENGLAND’S OVERSEA FOOD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1550, 13 May 1916, Page 4

ENGLAND’S OVERSEA FOOD.

WHY YEW ZEALAND BUTTER IS NOT KNOWN IN ENGLAND.

Of all Iho anomalies of the London butter market, and there are many —the greatest is surely the fact Unit hardly a single cartload, out of all the forty million pounds weight of New Zealand butter that annually linds its way to this country, is bought by the British customer as “New Zealand butter.” The housewife who even knows that there is such a thing as New Zealand butter in our market is hardly to be fouml, and small wonder, seeing that beyond being included in the list of one or two retail stores, N.Z. butter never enters into public consumption as “New Zealand buter.” It is all swallowed up by the blender, and this is the reason that a gulf is fixed between its price and the ruling quotation for Danish butter, a difference far in excess of that in real quality and lineness. New Zealand butter goes to the blender to grade up other butters into improved products, not to grade down something more expensive.

There are many difficulties in the way of the successful marketing in the country of New Zealand butter under its own name, though there arc few people who would deny that this product from the Dominion is deserving of this treatment here. The present time, when many changes are taking place in trade organisation may not be an unprofitable fme to discuss (he possibilities of New Zealand butter coming iudepenedntly on to the British retail market. For one thing the grading of New Zealand butter has for years past been of the highest order, and there is a uniformity of control of the majority of the butter factories in New Zealand achieved by the existence of the National Dairy Farmers’ Association of New Zealand, which controls the output of nearly 250 factories, most of them in the North Island. These factories dispatch nearly two-thirds of the total annual export of New Zealand butter and cheese. It is striking evidence of the evenness of quality of New Zealand butter that !)7 per cent, of it comes under first-grade, and market prices in Tooley street form the best te.stimoniiil as to the equability of the New Zealand product when it arrives in Great Britain.

Unfortunately, at present Hie make of New Zealand hatter is practically limited to live months of the year, and this, of course, seriously militates against its regular appearance on this market all the year round. The New Zealand dairy farmer has not yet been induced to make butter thi’ough the winter, and until the seasonal manufacture is spread out for more months of the year the trade cannot be bridged over through every month here.

The nature of butter as a marketable commodity and the ditliculty of securing that the true brand of origin shall follow every sample to its ultimate destination give rise to the thought that a national New Zealand butter trade could only be successfully launched with the butter arriving in the wrapped roll form, in the same way as some special dairy butters are marketed at the present time. Colonial Governments have in the past had lessons (hat the [British consumers cannot, be reached independently of the wholesaler middleman here, but, there exist several butter distributing agencies in Loudon and elsewhere by which the business could be developed. Muilable publicity would help the movement.

The fact lluil New Zealand but lei* lias been quoted consistently of late in the one or two retail store lists alluded to above at ,1s 8d per lb and thereabouts, speaks for the produet itself. Its marketing us a distinct eolonial produet is an Imperial issue which many people consider ripe for consideration at this time, and although we are now well into the l!)I5-lfi season before another season arrives the subject may be further advanced, although this is its first discussion on these lines in the public press. —London Standard.