WELLINGTON - New Zealand will soon start trying to claw back its $50 million spreadable butter market in Europe, partially snatched away in a quota row with British Customs.
Significant shipments of the butter, as spreadable as margarine, will leave New Zealand again - for the first time in three
years - later this season.
British Customs lost its case against the New Zealand product but New Zealand may not have won. The pioneering butter's exporter, the Dairy Board, doubts it will regain its earnings because com-petitive products have entered the market since New Zealand was shut out.
A Dairy Board spokesman, Neville Martin, said that before Britain blocked sales, claiming that spreadable butter breached New Zealand's 76,000 tonne annual butter quota, 5000 tonnes had been exported a year.
The product had been earning $50 million a year retail.
To maintain at least a foothold on the niche it had created, the Dairy Board produced the spreadable product in Belgium for the European market.
Spreadable butter was introduced to New Zealand consumers about the time the row began but local earnings are not available. Mr Martin said the butter had been popular among Britain's young affluent class. - NZPA
