CHEESE OR BUTTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 236, 5 October 1936, Page 4

CHEESE OR BUTTER

COST OF PRODUCTION. The relative popularity of butter manufacture as against that of cheese is dealt with in the annual report of the N"ew Zealand Dairy Board as follows:— 1 he trend of production is now toward an increase in the output of butter, and tor two years in succession there has been a substantial decline in cheese manuface - What the effect of guaranteed prices will be upon this trend still remains to be seen. Unless there is a substantial premium on the payment for butterfat supplied to a cheese factory as compared with that supplied to a butter factory, it is certain that the production of cheese will tend to further decrease. The time' lost by the farmer or his employee in delivery ot milk to the cheese factory, the wear and tear and cost of running and maintaining the plant, such as lorries, horse ;and spring carts, milk cans, etc., and the of skim milk for feeding calves and -pigs, has to be taken into consideration when the dairy farmer faces the problem of cheese versus butter. The industry has declared in no uncertain way that to enable milk to be delivered to a cheese factory without a loss, in compari- I son to having cream picked up at the farm gate for supply to a butter factory, necessitates a premium on butterfat of certainly not less than l%d per lb. The question further arises in connection with the pr-oblem as to whether the Government will insist on the maintenance of the production of the present quantity of chcese." Note.—Advice has since been received that the Government has agreed to an additional payment of lV&d per lb oh butterfat for cheese making.