!6o THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES [384 



tion of the factory butter passes through only one middle- 

 man. Some of these have a special contract with a whole- 

 sale dealer in butter to do the buying for them; but others 

 have a department in their own organization that does the 

 buying for the various stores according to their needs as 

 to quality and amounts. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea 

 Co. is probably the largest concern of this kind. In March, 

 191 5, this company was operating one thousand stores. It 

 has several butter and cheese departments located in differ- 

 ent cities. Some of the large producers sell direct to the 

 consumers through their own stores. An example of this 

 type of selling is the Slawson-Decker Co., operating in New 

 York. This concern deals in milk primarily but also makes 

 large quantities of butter which is sold at their milk stores. 

 Some of the large producers in the middle west, known as 

 " centralizers ", sell directly to the retail trade through their 

 own jobbers or salesmen. 1 The usual method for the co- 

 operative creameries is to ship to a city wholesale dealer. 

 But if the principle of cooperation at present applied to 

 production be extended to marketing, there is no reason why 

 they should not establish a selling agency of their own. 

 Only recently the cooperative creameries of Jackson 

 County, Wisconsin, organized with a view primarily to 

 improve conditions in making butter, but their hope is also 

 to facilitate the marketing of the product. 2 With such an 

 organization of a number of creameries the cooperative fac- 

 tories can afford to establish selling agencies of their own. 

 Obviously the product of one factory is not sufficient to 

 meet the expenses of a selling agency, but when the product 

 of a number of factories can be collected and shipped in car- 



1 U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 

 164, pp. 35 and 39. 



' N. Y. Produce Review and American Creamery, Jan. 6, 1915, p. 564. 



