16 BULLETIISr 682, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Thus it is seen that while expert judges of quality will pay high 

 prices for butter of exceptional quality and that while the local coun- 

 try creamery marketing system does differentiate between different 

 grades of butter, the highest grades do not always retail at the highest 

 prices. Many lots of country creamery butter, scoring equally as high 

 as samples of " special brands," were retailed at prices 5 or 6 cents 

 per pound lower. 



EFFECT OF DIFFERENCES IN TYPE OF RETAILERS. 



In Table 3 it is shown that some retailers made larger margins of 

 profit by selling butter substitutes than they did by selling the ordi- 

 nar}^ grades of creamery butter. It is noteworthy, however, that as 

 a general rule most retailers took a larger margin on the higher 

 grades of butter than they did for Firsts or Seconds. Not all retail- 

 ers aim to handle butter at a profit, for many grocers sold butter at 

 unusually small margins in order to draw trade for other goods 

 which presumably were being sold at fair margins of profit. Table 5 

 gives some comparisons in the volume of business, the kind of butter 

 and butter substitutes handled, the comparative selling prices, and 

 the margins at which butter was handled by different kinds of retail 

 establishments. 



MUNICIPAL MARKET STANDS. 



The retail stands in public or central market places had the largest 

 average weekly sales. These stands, like the dairy stores, generally 

 sold only dairy products and eggs. Another distinguishing charac- 

 teristic of this class of retail stores is that they make no deliveries of 

 goods and all sales are for cash. In Philadelphia and New York 

 this class of retailers supplied a considerable portion of the more 

 discriminating class of consumers who exercise care in selecting their 

 goods. The quality of a large portion of butter handled by this 

 class of dealers was necessarily exceptionally high to meet the 

 demands of their trade. (See Table 5, p. 18.) 



DELICATESSEN STORES. 



Under the class designated as delicatessen stores are included small 

 family grocery stores which do not maintain a delivery service and 

 whose average weekly sales are comparatively small. In the aggre- 

 gate the percentage of the consumers in Chicago and New York who 

 secure their butter supply as well as other staple groceries from this 

 type of stores is large. Eetailers of this class were found to be the 

 poorest judges of quality in the goods they bought, and their average 

 buying and selling prices were higher than those of dealers of any 

 other class. In some cities many of these small retailers have sought 

 to overcome this handicap through an arrangement whereby all pur- 



