“Packaged” Milk Urged To Encourage Demand

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 17

“Packaged” Milk Urged To Encourage Demand

(From Our Own Reporter)

TIMARU, October 6. With the amount of work done on milk to improve its safety for consumption, it was an educational neglect not to use the medium of advertising and education to present a wholesome flood to the public, said the health inspector, Waimate, Mr R. W. Sharplin. in a paper on milk and milk products presented to the health inspectors’ conference at Timaru yesterday.

He said that milk consumed in an untreated state < unseparated and unprepared except for pasteurisation) amounted to 24 per cent, of the total amount purchased by each household, which averaged .72pints a day per person.

“This amount of milk that is consumed in the ordinary state by the ordinary person amounts to onefifth of a pint daily. A pint is recommended by health authorities, and even in a country with an excess of good foods available as has New Zealand, people can suffer from malnutrition, ill health and mental sickness—as our hospital statistics show—because of poor diet,” Mr Sharplin said. Milk-vending Machines Mr Sharplin said milk should be made available to the public as a convenient, packaged, light meal appetiser. The New Zealand Milk Board had undertaken a lot of research on the sale of flavoured milk by automatic dispensers, while in Britain, at the end of last year, 3000 milk-vending machines were operating, selling 6.000,000 gallons of milk a year. By

the end of this year it was expected that this amount would be trebled, he added. “In New Zealand the experiments have not been a tremendous success, and if success is not forthcoming as far as the milk companies are concerned, they will dose down on the scheme.” he said. He added that the problem of storage was yet to be answered properly. Experiments On Containers Mr Sharplin said that in Germany experiments were being carried out on plastic sacs with built-in dirinking tubes. “The plastic bag is lightly squeezed and a recessed nipple is projected, the sealed end bitten off, and the milk is consumed by the normal suction manner,” he said. Another container under consideration was a triangular pyramidal carton of waxed paper, he said.

Once efficient treatment and packaging plants were established, departmental officers could aid the health education programme of encouraging persons to be more selective in their diet patterns, and to see convenient and wholesome food packs were made available to the public, Mr Sharplin concluded.