WHY A LUXURY?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 127, 31 May 1935, Page 14

WHY A LUXURY?

CREAM IN DOMINION. SUPPLIES FROM FACTORIES. SUPPORT FOR SALES. (By Telegrnph.—Own Correspondent.) WHANGARET, Thursday.

Support of the efforts of the Tauranga Dairy Company for the removal of any obstacle preventing the sale of dairy companies' cream was forthcoming from the North Auckland Dairy Conference. "If cream was sold by factories at a reasonable price there would be no quota," said Mr. A. C. Kingston (Bay of Islands), introducing a remit on those

lines. "Consumers are paying an exorbitant price at the present time, and there is no valid argument why factories should not sell wholesale."

Mr. C. B. Michie stressed the desirability of not overloading the product to an unnecessarily high price, which would place a necessary food out of reach of many people. "The city children need cream," ho said. "Many of them arc under-nourished and their minds are depraved. Due to the aftermath of war conditfms, many of our present-day troubles have grown upon ns, and whatever we can do to help in the recovery to a healthy outlook in body and mind should be done."

Mr. W. Grounds said that the matter had been before the. Dairy Board last year. The Health Department, then, had no objection to factories supplying cream, provided the properties from which the supply was drawn conformed to the standard of farms licensed to supply city dairies.

Mr. F. Cullcn said that in the Waikato there were a few farmers so licensed, and consequently the factories which they supplied took the right of sending pasteurised cream to the cities. "The average test of cream sent to Northern factories," he said, "would be about 40 per cent, whereas the minimum tost at which the retailer may sell is 25 per cent. That is about the maximum, too, while it is cream, and not good milk, which the city dwellers ask for." Mr. A. F. Guy (Kaikohe) said that wlien farmers visited friends in the cities the cream was passed along with great pride. It was regarded as a luxury, and New Zealand was the country where the butter came from, and "the home of the dairy cow." The use of cream would save importing other foods, and lessen the export of butter. It was rather pathetic that the Aueklander regarded cream/as a rare delicacy, while New Zealand did not know what to do with her surplus butter. The remit was carried unanimously.