14 BULLETIN 682, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



when local competitive conditions permit. During the year 1914, 

 when representatives of the department were investigating market- 

 ing conditions in the Middle West, it was found that the creameries 

 in St. Paul, for example, were receiving at certain seasons higher 

 prices than neighboring country creameries which shipped to Chi- 

 cago. More than 375 lots of butter, which were scored in 103 repre- 

 sentative retail stores, hotels, and restaurants in St. Paul and Minne- 

 apolis, showed that, for the best grade of country creamery butter 

 in that market, certain retailers catering to a select class of trade 

 were paying practically 2 cents per pound more than the usual price 

 for the prevailing grades of both country creamery and centralizer 

 butter in that market. 



Only a small portion of the total requirements of those two cities, 

 however, was supplied by country creameries. Eetail grocers gen- 

 erally made no attempt to select their purchases on the basis of 

 quality. Individual retailers usually restricted their dealings to a 

 single centralizer creamery which supplied them regularly two or 

 three times a week with freshly churned goods. Some of them 

 stated that they believed that certain country creameries could sup- 

 j)ly them wdth a better grade of butter, but they had found that con- 

 sumers generally preferred the attractive retail packages of well- 

 advertised brands which were supplied by large centralizer creameries. 

 Even though expert judges of butter were able to detect superiority 

 in the quality of some of the country " make," retailers and con- 

 sumers generally did not notice any decidedly " off flavors " in the 

 brands furnished by the local centralizers. This was because they 

 were in a position to deliver freshly churned stock three or four 

 times a week. The difference in quality between some country cream- 

 ery stock and the current supply of centralizer brands was slight at 

 that season of the year. The average score of 120 lots of country 

 creamery butter was 89.96, as compared with a score of 89.39 for 220 

 lots of centralizer brands. 



Under such conditions it is difficult for country creameries to gain 

 a dependable market outlet in cities where certain large creameries 

 have developed a demand for their own make of goods. When out- 

 side creameries begin to make large shipments to such cities, prices 

 are immediately forced down, because of the lack of established out- 

 of-town trade connections. Unless creameries of the Middle Western 

 States, where butter is constantly produced in excess of local demands, 

 establish local concentrating points with facilities for grading and 

 storing, and with widely ramifying trade connections in many sec- 

 tions of the country, their choice between dependable market outlets 

 is practically limited to such wholesale markets as Chicago, New 

 York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 



