THE NUT BUTTER INDUSTRY 171 



of " butterine." It was not until the introduction 

 of coconut fats that the manufacture of butter 

 substitutes became a recognised industry. Some 

 doubt exists as to who was first in the field with 

 nut butter, but it was recently stated on official 

 authority that Messrs. Rocca, Tassey & de 

 Roux, of Marseilles, were the first to place upon 

 the market, under the name of " Vegetaline," a 

 coconut butter, the basis of which was an edible 

 fat extracted from copra oil. The remarkable 

 success achieved by this firm, according to the 

 author of The Cult of the Coconut, is demonstrated 

 by the growth of their output, for, while they 

 started by manufacturing about 25 tons of this 

 nut butter per month, their Marseilles, Hamburg, 

 Geneva, and Milan factories now turn out quite 

 36,500 tons per annum, of which they export 

 11,000 tons to the United Kingdom ; and the ques- 

 tion of further extending their capacity may come 

 under consideration. Marseilles has always been, 

 and still remains, a very important centre of this 

 industry, its total output of nut butter alone now 

 aggregating 75,000 tons per annum. 



On the other hand, it is only fair to place on 

 record that an English firm is said to have pro- 

 duced coconut butter as a marketable article of 

 diet several years before the above-named firm 

 started operations, although the latter can, we 

 believe, fairly claim that they were the first to 



