DAIRYING IN DENMARK.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 145, 12 August 1926, Page 3

DAIRYING IN DENMARK.

METHODS OF MARKETING. Payment on Grade. Mr. Poison’s Observations. Speaking at the Dominion Conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union at Wellington on Tuesday, the president (Mr. W. J. Poison) dealt with the methods of marketing adopted in connection with Danish butter. The average size of the Danish farms, he said, was over 35 acres, and with barn feeding, a heavy pig production, and extensiye and intensive poultry raising, it was surprising what comfort and comparative luxury the average Danish farmer’s family lived in. “ It is a mistake to suppose that the Danish dairy farmers are great cooperators. As a matter of fact,” he went on, “ barely 40 per cent, of them are members of co-operative dairyfactories at all. Thirty per cent, deal with private proprietary factories, and 30 per cent, sell to the CVV.S. and Maypole butter concerns of Great Britain, who have various organisations in Denmark.

“ The most important Danish cooperative dairy society is the Danish Co - operative Butter Company at Estjberg, which has 78 factories in its circle, averaging about 200 suppliers to the factory. These factories send in their butter every week to the company’s store. Here the butter is carefully examined, both as to pack and contents, and graded for the English market. No really second-grade butter reaches this organisation. The penalties for inferior butter are so great that no factory producing such an article could afford to join it. The system is quite different from the New Zealand system, and the g—’des run from 1, which is of course 'npossibly low, to 15, which is equ My impossibly high. The best achir ' ->d is about 13, which is a phenomer.-.Hy good quality of butter, and the ; verage is 11, which is a good selling quality.

“ The plan is to draw a sample from one or more casks of every association’s weekly shipments, and to keep it for three weeks so that there is always a week or two old 'sample to compare with the new lot. In this way a tag is kept on the keeping qualities of the butter. The sample which is kept is closed in an automatically adjusted temperature of over 60 degrees.

“ The average of the factories’ tests are taken and if for example, the test works out at 11.17, then the butter is offered for sale as of a test of 11. A dairy’s butter, which is one point below, or half-a-point above the average, gets the same payment, but if it falls below that the deduction rises automatically in proportion to the fall in the number of points. The amount produced by the deduction has to be divided amongst the dairies whose average character is more than half-a-point above the average character of all dairies by examination. “ All this butter is sold before it leaves Denmark to regular buyers who have been in the habit of getting it, and can rely on the standard. In every case these buyers get the product of the dairy association they are used to. “ There are eleven co-op. associations in Denmark and they exported 900 000 casks of butter last year. The Estjberg association alone exports 200 000 casks, or 3600 a week. “ The Danish system of control of butter prices has no compulsory features. But the greatest importance is attached, not to price, hut to freshness. The most important function of the committee is to see that Danish butter reaches the consumer fresh. That is where the Dane scores his sole victory over us.”