DAIRY PRODUCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1922, Page 8

DAIRY PRODUCE.

AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL. SCHEME OF SALES SUGGESTED. On the question of the handling o£ dairy produce a correspondent writes to the Wellington Post: The writer has given the matter of handling our dairy produce some consideration, and there is no. doubt the present method by which the bulk of our output of dairy produce is disposed of is just about as crude and obsolete as it possibly can be. The system obtaining at present is: A meeting of directors is held before the season opens, and a postcard is sent to a few exporters’ agents in New Zealand advigiftg the date of the disposal meeting. some seven to twelve representatives of various export houses attend by invitation, and each places before the directors some proposition for either recommending consigiring, or selling, straight out. The question, as it appears to one who has attended these meetings, is how many of these directors are conversant with or follow the trend of the overseas markets.

Last season, representatives attended meetings, and, in many cases, directors were strongly advised to sell, and prices ranging from lid to 1.ly 2 d f.o.b. were offered for the season's output of cheese. When f.o.b. was offered, some of these factor}- directors decided they would not sell for less than Is. Now, at that time, if anyone had studied the markets for New* Zealand’s primary products, they could have only come to one conclusion, and that was that there was nothing on the horizon to make one believe that butter and cheese prices were going to be maintained at ll%d’ f.o.b. for cheese. Dairy factories were doing remarkably well, and these directors had no reason to refuse these very fine offers for cheese, as was shown in the light of after events. Many of the factories who did refuse are realising something like B<l f.0.b., or a ript loss of about £3O per ton on the season’s output.

This system of disposing of outputs is bad, and, in the writer’s opinion, what is wanted in the Dominion is weekly or monthly sales of dairy produce bv auction, and this could easily be arranged by conducting butter and cheese sales at Auckland, New Plymouth, Hawera, Palmerston North, and Wellington, such sales to be controlled by a secretary, auctioneer, and staff, directly under the control of the North Island Dairy Association. By this method buyers and their representatives would attend from all parts of the world, thus ensuring a maximum of competition. The same method could be followed in the South Island. The cost to factories need not be more than 2 per cent, on the whole of their product, and this levy of 2 per cent, on all factories would more than pay for the organisation conducting the selling of the Dominion’s output. Buyers, or representatives of buyers in Great Britain, France, United States, Canada, and, in fact, any country requiring our butter and cheese, would attend. Under the present obsolete system many markets cannot buy except through London.

I have before me a letter written early in April, from Montreal, stating that New Zealand butter was selling round about 43 cents, per lb., and this was butter, re-exported from London. This letter remarks on the very high quality of the New Zealand product. There are other countries besides England looking for our product, and by the dairying factories setting up an organisation for the sale of their outputs, such as is outlined above, they need not trouble whether the butter is sold in London or America, so long as they see the quality and packing of their produet are maintained. ,