Grassmere To Yield First Refined Salt

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31989, 16 May 1969, Page 14

Grassmere To Yield First Refined Salt

Skellerup Industries, Ltd, and Cerebos (New Zealand), Ltd expect their Lake Grassmere factory to begin producing the ’first New Zealand-made table salt next month, but there is some doubt whether Dominion Salt, Ltd, can deliver the required fine grade salt on time.

Dominion Salt, owned jointly by Skellerup, Cerebos and the Government, ended the season’s harvest at its Lake Grassmere solar works this week with the third successive bumper crop.

Output amounted to 55,000 tons, the same as last year’s and 1000 tons more than in 1967, when the exceptionally good seasons began. When the big harvester combine took its first bite at the inch-thick salt crust on April 4 this year, more than 40,000 tons of salt were still stockpiled at the works, the Press Association reports from Blenheim. The manager-engineer of Dominion Salt’s works (Mr C. R. Ball) said that the 100,000 tons in the stockpile now was the biggest heap of salt likely to be seen in New Zealand. He expected to sell more than half the pile this year.

The table salt packing factory is nearing completion, but Mr Ball has some doubts whether Dominion Salt can deliver the required fine grade of salt to its neighbour on time. The necessary equipment for crushing, washing and kiln drying the raw salt had not yet been fully installed and tested, he said. Cerebos acquired a onethird interest in Dominion Salt from Skellerup and the Government three years ago. When the British salt expert took up its interest, Dominion Salt became an investment, rather than a subsidiary, of Skellerup. Control has remained in New Zealand.