PRICES AND QUALITY OF CREAMERY BUTTER. 21 
An important function of an efficient butter marketing system is to 
effect such a distribution of the various grades of butter produced in 
various parts of the country that the product of each factory may be 
sold in the particular city or section of a city where it will bring the 
highest return to the. producer. Improvement in sources of market 
information would facilitate such an equitable distribution of the 
output of more than 4,000 creameries which are individually too small 
to maintain their own sales organizations in distant markets. Under 
the prevailing system of marketing country creamery butter, however, 
market returns to creamerymen are based upon market quotations 
issued by market reporting agencies, and a method of grading which 
is controlled by the wholesale butter merchants themselves. A system 
of butter inspection and grading operated under the supervision of 
the Federal Government,' available to shippers of creamery butter 
and wholesale and retail distributers, would tend to facilitate the mar- 
ket distribution of creamery butter on an equitable quality basis. A 
market-reporting service on creamery butter was recently established 
by the Bureau of Markets of the United States Department of Agri- 
culture; and many creameries and wholesale market receivers are 
relying upon the daily market reports issued as a basis for guiding 
their marketing operations. The price reports? issued by the Bureau 
of Markets are based upon actual sales of various lots of butter of 
different grades of quality, and an average price is quoted for each 
score rather than a range of prices covering the scores included within 
the different market grades. (See Table 1.) 
These studies of quality and prices of creamery butter show that 
the highest retail prices are paid for creamery butter which is sold - 
under a trade-mark or brand that is generally recognized among con- 
sumers as a guaranty of uniform excellence of quality. Generally, 
however, only those creameries which are located in large cities or 
whose outputs are sufficient to enable them to establish-their own mar- 
keting organizations in distant centers of population have been able 
to arrange to have their butter sold under their own distinctive 
brands or trade-marks. The unusually high prices obtained for cer- 
tain “ special brands” of butter sold in Philadelphia and New York 
suggest the possibility of increasing greatly the market returns of 
1Authority for establishing such,an inspection service was provided for in H. R. 4188, 
Sixty-fifth Congress, approved Aug. 10, 1917. 
2The Bureau of Markets’ price reporting service on creamery butter was authorized 
by Congress in H. R. 4188, Sixty-fifth Congress, which provided for “enlarging the 
markets news service” of the Bureau of Markets as a war-emergency measure. Branch 
offices have been established in the four important wholesale butter markets—Boston, 
New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago—and through these offices and others to be estab- 
lished, daily butter-market bulletins showing both wholesale and jobbing prices of 
ereamery butter in these markets, the cold-storage movement, and supplies of fresh 
butter on the market are issued. These bulletins are distributed free to all who make 
requests for them. 
