NEW CHURN FOR DAIRY FACTORY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14639, 7 April 1948, Page 2

NEW CHURN FOR DAIRY FACTORY

KEEPING pace with INDUSTRY Large Unit To Be Operated In Tauranga Greater Capacity; Fewer Man Hours A new churn and fittings, weighing approximately 14 tons, have arrived at the Tauranga Co-opera-tive' Dairy Association’s factory. Its installation and operation in the 1948-49 season will mark another milestone in the development of the industry in the Tauranga di At lC present two 50-box and one 42-box churns are in use at the Tauranga factory, but with the removal of the latter and its replacement with the new 100-box unit, valuable man hours will be saved. The churn to be replaced, in addi tion to being the smallest, is the oldest in use, in fact it has been in production for some 16 years. The continued growth of the district also results in an expansion of the dairying industry, replacement of the 42-box churn by a 100-box one, the biggest produced in New Zealand, will, it is realised, increase the capacity of the factory, and will mean a reduction m the manhours required for each box or. butter produced.

Fewer Churnings „ In the busiest part of the dairying season, when activity at the factory is naturally at -its peak, 11 to 12 churnings have been necessary to deal with the day-to-day production from farms in the area. Next season, however, with the operation of the much bigger unit tu_' number of churnings necessary will be lowered. „ , Manufactured by a well-known Christchurch firm, the new churn was shipped to Auckland and brought to Tauranga this week on a special railway truck. The churns at present in use in the factory were manufactured also by the same firm. The task of taking the new churn, weighing 7 tons 13 cwt., to the factory—the last stage of the long journey—was also not without its difficulties and necessitated much care, but it was. completed without mishap. The churn was removed from the railway truck on to a trailer, and then two trucks began the tow from the station along Cameron Road to Eleventh Avenue. Additional care was needed in the last few hundred yards, to negotiate the gradient from Cameron Road down Eleventh Avenue to the factory. The leading motor-truck was unhitched from the front, where it had been giving valuable towing assistance, and attached to the back of the trailer to ensure a slow descent. Erection of Unit With the churn now on the factory area, a start will be made in its installation when a further decline takes place in the season’s supply, and w’hen the 42-box unit is no longer needed. At the present time churning takes place at the factory on four days a week. At one time it was intended to have the new unit in operation for the busy part of the present season, but this was found impracticable because, with so many orders for churns, the manufacturing firm was unable to fulfil the Tauranga order in time. Although the new churn is similar in design to the existing ones, there are several modifications. For instance, with the new unit, faster working will be possible, while there are four sets of rollers for working the butter, in place of the customary three. The conveyor will have a winch attachment which will be sary for such a large churn, which will handle slightly more than two tons of butter compared with just over one ton produced in the existing churns of the 50-box type. GREATER DAIRYING OUTPUT 126 TONS MORE BUTTER FOR FIRST TEN MONTHS Following the seasonal decline in the dairying industry, supplies of cream are being taken to the Tauranga Co-operative Dairy Association’s factory on Only four days a week—Mondays, Wednesdavs, Fridays and Saturdays. Returns up to end of March for the first ten months of the present season show an increase of 126 tons in comparison with the corresponding period for the 1946-47 season. Production up to the end of last month totalled 2,006 tons, as against 1,880 tons. The increase has been spread over the whole ten months, but took place mainly in the sprin ,r and summer months. The output at the Tauranga factory last month was 157 tons, an increase of seven tons over the corresponding period in 1947.