CHEESE FOR THE BRITANNIA

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28150, 13 December 1956, Page 14

CHEESE FOR THE BRITANNIA

DUKE ACCEPTS GIFT AT COOL STORE EXPORT PROCESSES INSPECTED (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 12. Highest grade Cheddar cheese, a product of the Dalefield Co-operative Daily Company, Carterton. and butter from the Cheltenham Co-operative Dairy Company. Palmerston North, will shortly be in the pantry of the Royal yacht Britannia. The Duke of Edinburgh today accepted from the chair-

man .of directors of the cool store of the Co-operative Dairy Producers’ Freezing Company (Mr A. H. Hansen) these gifts after he had toured the storage section of the store.

The visit was yet another first-hand experience of the grading, packing, and loading processes of New Zealand butter and cheese for export, and but for the rain which fell for most of the afterhoon the Duke would have seen on the wharves the actual loading methods of meat, butter and cheese into the holds of the Ruahine. This section of his tour was. abandoned, but he boarded the Ruahine briefly after'meeting harbour board and shipping company officials, and then continued his wharfside visit to the cool store.

The Duke saw butter being received into the store from railway waggons to conveyors, and by elevators these supplies were taken to various floors. With a duffel coat over his shoulders he made a brief call inside the freezing chamber and saw the discharge of frozen butter to a railway waggon outside, and took an interest in the roller conveyor lines. He also saw crates of export cheese being handled on elevators and conveyors, tasted a sample of butter, and had explained to him the various methods used in the sampling processes.

The Duke met in the sampling room a nearly bald but white-bearded Russian, Alexei Godyaen, who fled his country in 1921. He is a chemist in the cool store, and has been six years in New Zealand, five years in the position he holds today. Before coming to New Zealand Mr Godyaen spent about a year and a half in Australia. He is believed to be the only Russian Orthodox priest in New Zealand. The Duke asked him about himself, and he was told some of Mr Godyaen’s history. • Before he left the cool store the Duke visited the engineroom, where watch engineers vtfere on duty, and altogether he spent about an hour examining and discussing a number of matters not only with the company officials, but also with the butter and cheese foremen, Messrs R. Reid and S. Beck, the Government grader in charge, Mr M. R. Tennet. and the works foreman, Mr R. R. Blair. The staff assembled to see the Royal visitor depart, and he was given a hearty burst of cheers as his car drove off.