NEW BUTTER FACTORY

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 11

NEW BUTTER FACTORY

ERECTION AT TE HANA. PORT ALBERT COMPANY. Mr. H. M. Neal, chairman of the Port Albert Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd., presided over a meeting in the Wellsford Hall of thoso interested in the erection of a new butter flactory in the Wellsford district. Mr. Weir, the Government dairy instructor for North Auckland, gav© a report on the two suggested sites, Te Hana and Wellsford, with special reference to the drainage problem. While Wellsford would be very central for the cartage of cream, it would be a difficult and expensive job to dispose of the factory drainage. At Te Hana the drainage would fall easily to a salt water creek.

It is hoped to secure water handy to the site at Te Hana by boring, but in the ©vent of the bores being unsuccessful, suitable supplies of water can be obtained by pumping from a creek two miles away. The site at Te Hana is 011 the railway property, and lias between the main North road and the railway siding, thus affording excellent facilities for the receipt of cream by road, and the dispatch of butter by railway. A sufficient area is available to erect a store for suppliers' requirements, and houses for the employees. Preparations for the calling of tenders for the buildings, plant, drainage, etc., are in handy and it is hoped to have the factory ready for the commencement of the new dairying season. The Port Albert Company, which has the license to erect the new factory, will then close its factory at Port Albert and reorganise its articles of association to take in . the new suppliers. It is understood that the finance to erect the new factory is being provided by _ a prominent English firm in the dairy produce business, on the understanding that it will have the selling of the new factory's output. The money advanced ivill be repaid by levies made as share capital from payments flor butterfat. It is uncertain how much cream_ will jontinue to go by train to the Kaipara Dairy Company's factory at Helensville, jut the new company hopes to commence jperations with an output of 1000 tons. Phe factory will be larire enough to landle an output of 2000 ' tons per innum. As the site is practically level, t will be a simple matter to design and mild what is known as a straight;hrough factory, in which the cream_ is -eceived at on® end and after going :hrough various vats, pasteurisers, roolers, churns, etc., is loaded when ■early into railway vans at the other md.. It is hoped to receive cream by •oad from Wayby in the 6outh to Kaiivalca ih tlie north, and from Port Albert md Wharehine in the west to Mangavai and Pakiri in the east. Within this irea there is sufficient dairying country ',o provide cream to enable a .factory ,o turn out 3000 tons of butter, but >win<r to the low prices at present, it s difficult to forecast how much_ land vill be brought into use for dairying.