PLAN No. 246. MARKETING BUTTER AND CHEESE BY PARCEL POST
LEWIS B. FLOHR, Investigator of Marketing and ROY C. POTTS, Specialist in Marketing Dairy Products.
Contribution from the Bureau of Markets, CHARLES J. BRAND. Chief.
For the following plan we are indebted to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
Because butter does not keep well unless good storage facilities are available, most families must purchase it frequently and in small quantities.
Parcel post has been found a desirable and useful means of sending butter from producer to consumer, and when favorable conditions exist and proper methods are used in preparing and mailing, it carries satisfactorily by that method of transportation.
There are practically no difficulties in transporting cheese by parcel post. Frequently this method of marketing affords an economical and satisfactory way for obtaining cheese for family use.
Butter is highly perishable unless it is handled under proper conditions, yet the fact that many consumers obtain their supplies direct from producers by parcel post, proved by the quantity passing through many post offices, indicates that parcel-post marketing of butter is feasible. It is usually an economical method, as the cost of market distribution through the regular wholesale and retail channels of trade is relatively high in comparison with the cost of shipments by parcel post from the first and second and sometimes more distant zones.
Experimental Parcel-Post Shipments of Butter
Shipments of butter aggregating more than 10,000 pounds have been made by the Bureau of Markets, under various conditions and in packages carrying from 1 to 10 pounds, over both long and short distances, in order to test various kinds of shipping containers, methods of packing, and the possibilities of parcel-post shipping of butter during the summer and other seasons. These experimental shipments consisted of (1) shipments of fresh butter from four creameries to this bureau, and (2) shipments of the butter received from the creameries by the bureau to experiment stations and return shipments of the same. The summarized results of the shipments from the four creameries are presented in the following table: