NEW ZEALAND BUTTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 130, 2 May 1940, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND BUTTER.

RETAIL PRICE AT HOME. The following is part of tho text of a note which was given to New Zealand and Australian Press representatives in London on May 1; — “It is true that, as stated in flic Press, there are ample supplies of butter in die United Kingdom at present. Those supplies have, however, been built up precisely with the object of meeting such a situation as has just been created by the total cessation of supplies of butter from Denmark. “A great deal of the Press comment which has appeared in New Zealand has been concerned with the question of the retail price at which butter is sold in the ' United Kingdom. It is, however misleading to compare the New Zealand f.o.b. price of 112 s 6d a cwt sterling with the issue price in the United Kingdom of 143 s a cwt, without bearing in mind that under peacetime conditions New Zealand and Aus tralian butter would have to boar the cost of insurance and freight. In addition such Butter would have to carry certain selling charges (commission, discount, storage, interest, claims, etc.) amounting to at least 5s per cwt. “It is, therefore, improbable that even under pre-war conditions, butter which provided a return in New Zealand of 112 s 6d sterling per cwt could have been sold in retailers’ shops in ihe United Kingdom at loss than Is 6d a lb, i.c., only Id a lb below the present maximum retail price. This difference of Id would seem to be fully justified by increased costs during wartime. The Costings Department of the Ministry of hood will, however, continue to give dose attention to the question of effecting from time to time all possible savings in cost of storage, insurance and distribution with a view to the reduction of present retail price of butter whenever that course becomes practicable. “It should also be borne in mind (bat New Zealand and Australia have already received a substantial quantitative preference in that, notwithstanding their great distance from tho Mother Country, the whole of the butter which lias been produced and shipped in the present favourable season has been bought by the United Kingdom.”