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48
With regard to the more ordinary brands of margarine,
a quotation from the trade journals and from one
of London's leading wholesale provision dealers shows
that the margarine usually sold at 6d. per lb. is charged
to the retailer at 52s. to 54s. per cwt., from which there
would appear to be a gross profit of about 5½ per cent.
on the cost price.
Assuming, as one may very well do from the experience
of numerous purchases, that the larger proportion
of these margarines are sold at say 8d. per lb., the gross
profit on cost price would, of course, be increased to 41
per cent. As the samples of margarine, the subject of
the above proceedings, were sold at 1s. 2d. per lb., it
can at once be seen to what an extent the working classes
and poorer persons living in East End districts are
imposed upon by what appears to be a somewhat unscrupulous
form of retailing margarine containing only some
2 per cent of butter-fat at what are really butter prices.
John Foot.
November, 1915.