BUTTER SUBSTITUTES

Shannon News, 26 January 1926, Page 4

BUTTER SUBSTITUTES

.« CHEAP AND NASTY. RIVALS OF THE DAIRY. Vegetable oils are used to a 1 larger extent to replace, lard than butter, according to the United States Bureau of Markets. It estimates that, lard substitutes comprised 34 per cent, of the total lard and lard substitutes produced in the United States, while olemargarilie was about 20 per cent, of the total butter and butter substitutes. It is estimated that there were 1,422,458,0001 b of butter produced in the United States during 1920, of which 800,000,0001 b was factory butter and 600,000,0001 b was farm butter. The total production of oleo for 1920 was 370,730,0001 b, 'Of which 191.01)0.0001b was made exclusively li Oin vegetab e oils. A study of the relative wholesale out air, oleomargarine, nut . *. .i-.i imeoanut oil presents j .itg com Parisians.- ft w.U i<> ..-.-u jii-pomi butter uveragij uoouL -Lou above oleomargarine tine packing-house product) , and • nut” margarine from cocoanut oil about 5d lower than the packinghouse product at the beginning of 1920, but reaching the same price at the opening of 1921. . Coooanut oil ranged from slightly above the fifteen months. Definite figures for April and May are not available as this is written, but the spread between butter and the limitation product is now probably not very large. “The stability of margarine prices,” says the Bureau of Markets, “is probably due in part to controlled production and marketing, while butter prices shoAv the usual fluctations of commodites whose production and marketing are uncontrolled.”

This comparision is more startling 1 Avhen weekly quotations are given, as butetr will show changes of as much as 10 cents in one month, while the imitation product is held at a practically stationary price level. The total margarine production has increased from 202,000,0001 b in 1916 to nearly 371,000,0001 bin 1920, the past year hotvever showing a decrease of over a half-million pounds from the previous year. Since 1916 the total production of butter has increased from 1,621,700,0001 b to 1,442,458,0001 b, or over 179,000,0001 b the decrease from 1919 amounting to over 100,000,0001 b. During the past five years the * ratio of substitutes to the total butter and substitute has jumped from 1 per cent to 20 per cent.