A- — '. 



CO-OPERATIVE BUTTER EXPORT SOCIETIES 



When the Co-operative Dairy Societies were formed their 

 chief aim was to improve the technical side, the manufacture 

 of butter and, in a smaller degree, of cheese. The disposal of 

 the produce was left to the merchants to whom it was sold, in 

 the usual way, under contracts or agreements for one year at a 

 time, the butter to be delivered weekly and the price to be regu- 

 lated by the official Copenhagen Butter Quotation. That was 

 the way in which nearly all the " estate butter " was sold. The 

 buyers were mostly Danish merchants specialising in the butter 

 trade, and most of the butter went to Great Britain. The 

 largest buyers were the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 

 Manchester and the Maypole Dairy Co., London, and these 

 found it to their advantage to have their own buyers in Den- 

 mark, where the first now has offices in Copenhagen and four 

 provincial towns, while the latter has its chief representative 

 in Copenhagen with branches in two or three towns. Other 

 English firms have, from time to time, had their own buyers in 

 Denmark. 



In one respect the trade and export of butter to Great 

 Britain would seem to be carried on on very economical lines, 

 inasmuch as the number of middlemen between the producing 

 Dairy Societies and the Enghsh retailers has been gradually 

 reduced to a minimum. In many cases Danish exporters buy- 

 ing from the dairies would sell direct to Enghsh retailers, or 

 Enghsh wholesale merchants or even retailers would buy direct 

 from Danish dairies. It may safely be said that no other 

 agricultural produce is sold to consumers in another country at 

 so small an advance in price beyond what the farmer receives 

 as is Danish butter in England. Nevertheless the producers 

 have, from time to time, raised complaints against the way in 

 which the butter trade was carried on. 



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