OPOURIAO DAIRY COMPANY OWED START TO FROST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 89, 23 January 1950, Page 5

OPOURIAO DAIRY COMPANY OWED START TO FROST

It probably would have come into being in any case for the simple reason that the land of the Opouriao Valley is natural dairy land, but a big factor in determining the date of the start of the Opouriao Dairy Company was a heavy frost that wiped out extensive maize crops in January 1900. That made maize-growing look a bit risky and gave the gospel of the cow a chance to spread. The Company celebrates its golden jubilee on Thursday. The story of the Company’s beginning, and a bit of the history of the block of land from which it draws its suppliers, was told to a Beacon reporter by Mr J. Moody, sole survivor of the provisional Board of Directors, and secretary of the Company for 49 of the 50 seasons it has operated. He is retiring after the jubilee celebrations this week. They Grew Maize The Opouriao estate, between and 7,000 acres and extending from Mr J. Roberts’s present farm on the Taneatua road to the confiscation line near Ruatoki, was the second large estate in this country acquired by the Government under the Lands for Settlement Act, the Crown taking over from the South Island owners, Messrs Gould Bros?., not long after the Cheviot Estate was cut up. Sections were first ballotted for in February, 1896, and one of the first settlers was Mr Moody, who acquired the block of land on which he still lives hear Taneatua township. Chief farming activity in the early days of the settlement was maize growing, and the land yielded 80 fo 100 bushel crops in the first year or two. Summer frosts were the only “fly in the ointment.” Ideal Dairy Land \ In 1899 a number of the/settlers, ' including Mr Moody, formed the (opinion that the land would be ideal for dairying, and decided to try to organise a company to manufacture cheese. Mr Moody is the sole survivor of the provisional directorate. The others were the late Messrs W. Phillips (first Chairman of Directors), S. James, Geo. Wilson, J. F. G. D. Ball and Thomas Mitchell. Mr Moody was, appointed secretary at the first meeting, and hag held the office (with the exception of one season which he devoted wholly to his farming operations) throughout the history of the ■Company. / ' It was intended to start with a capital of £I,OOO and to seek a Gov■ernment loan of £SOO to build the factory: However, to get the loan it was necessary to get guarantees that there woi&ld be herds to supply the factory, and that was not going too well —until the big frost that wiped out the maize crops. After that a canvass of the settlers easily yielded the needed cow guarantees and Shareholders. So "the first factory was built on a site made available by the late Mr V. B. Flowerday, and took in its first supplies of milk in the last week of ■October, ”1900, paying out 7id per lb of butterfat on December 8 that year. First manager was Mr O. W. D. Tabor, and the first year’s output, with 25 suppliers, was 59 tons of cheese. Remarkable Growth The Company prospered, and production grew remarkably. Today it has two factories, drawing from 90 suppliers and turning out 1081 tons of cheese a year. Present rate for butterfat is 2/s|d. It was 1907 before the first Ruatoki factory was built, and it went into production that year under'the management of Mr W. Shepherd. Expanding production and other factors demanded the rebuilding of the Opouriao factory, and it was rebuilt as it now stands in 1927. The original Ruatoki factory was burned down and had to be rebuilt in 1928. Mr Alan Cave, of Waihi, was architect for both the new factories, and the contractor was the late Mr T. Palmer, of Te Puke. Buttermaking Venture In 1915 the Opouriao factory ventured into the creamery buttermaking field, but later dropped back to concentrating on cheese and whey butter. First manager of the creamery butter department was Mr Peter Madsen, now a farmer at Opotiki. Mr Moody expressed his satisfaction with the way the Company had developed over the years, growing from a £I,OOO concern to a Company with a capital of £30,000. Events have more than justified the faith that he and his early associates had in the dairying possibilities of their settlement.