DANISH BUTTER.

Shannon News, 19 April 1927, Page 3

DANISH BUTTER.

HOW IT IS MARKETED. WEEKLY QUOTATIONS FIXED. In an endeavour to obtain some information regarding the Danish system of marketing that country's butter, a 1 series of questions has been put to. the Auckland Herald by Mr B. F. Booker, cf Whit ford. Mr Booker says a large number of farmers are still in the dark as to what "price fixing" means, and he contends that if answers were supplied to the questions he propounds the farmers would know on what side of the fence they were standing. Mr. Booker's first question is: "'ls it a fact that the Danes sell all their butter to England. An answer is to be found in the reptrt of the Imperial Economic-Committee, concerning dairy produce; which rays Danish butter "is sold .by contract % either direct to Danish wholesale butter merchants, to large British consumers such as the Co'-i-operative Wholesale Society, er the multiple shops who have established buying depots in Denmark,.. or to co-operative exporting societies whose members consist of the co-opera-live societies manufacturing the butter. »!' THE BASIS OF SALES. Mr C. W. Moller, the Danish correspondent to the New Zealand' Dairyman, in an article in that journal in May last, says that approximately 7o per cent, of the weekly export of Danish butter is now sold on the British market on an f.o.b. basis, while, with periodical exceptions, the major part of the balance goes to Germany. "The export of Danish butter to England is now so old and the mutual confidence between the sellers and the buyers is so great," Mr. Moller says> "that the Danish exporters simply despatch the butter direct to the various buyers in England and Scotland, and, at the same time, draw\a ten days' draft on j their client for the amount of their in-! voice." Mr Booker next asks, if the butter is- ■ sold f.0.b., by whem is the price fixed J and approved? On Thursday of each | week, a committee consisting of pro- j oucers and experts meets in Copenhag- j en and has before it returns of the j prices paid during the previous seven days for all butter exported from the country. With this information and also details of the position in foreign markets, the committee fixes' an '' of-, ficial quotation." which becomes the 1 minimum which the exporters must pay to the producers for the produce which has. been sold during the previous week. The quotation is also a guide to ihe -.rices-for-the Home market during the ensuing week, but it is not meant to represent the price at which butter exported during the following week is *o be sold. > RATES FOR "FANCY BUTTER." Many of the factories' which', make. what is known in the trade as "fancy butter" contract to sell their output at a premium of a farthing to a halfpenny above the official quotation. Mr itfoller says several attempts have been made in recent years by the Copenhagen committee to do away 'with these over-prices by enforcing a high quotation/but all efforts to that end have been in vain, so it would seenthe system has now grown to be a permanent link in the relation between the manufacturer and the merchant. Mr Booker also asks, is it a fact j that only sold Danish butter is shipped to England, and where and how is the surplus disposed of? The ar.swers to these questions may be found in the answeis to the first and second. The location of Denmark makes it possible for that country to divert supplies to other markets than the British, and it is known that the exporters ..ficquently do this when there "seems to be a possibility vi the British market becoming over-supplied. Germany is l the favourite outlet for such surplus butter, and the system of marketing in that country is practically the same as in England. .