Standardised, Cheese

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 180, 28 April 1931, Page 11

Standardised, Cheese

Sir, —The system of payment for milk used to make cheese is the real cause of the pitfall—-standardised cheese. In the early days of the cheese industry, payment on the butter-fat content was satisfactory, as nearly all suppliers had much the same quality of milk, and on this quality (fat percentage) New Zealand made a good > reputation with its cheese. Later on some farmers began to introduce the Jersey breed, with its comparatively small milk yield and high percentage of fat. The small amount of this milk did not at first affect the quality of the cheese manufactured. As time went on, however,' more farmers went in for the Jersey, until there was a predominance of Jersey milk being used in some factories —then it was noticeable that the quality and the yield of cheese per pound of fat began to drop. The factories found it a difficult matter to make finest cheese out of very high-test-ing • milk, and to counteract this some factories started skimming this milk, putting the skim milk into the cheese vats to lower‘the’average fat content of the milk used to make cheese (“standardised cheese,” the cheese that has lost New Zealand her reputation in this industry). Actually the milk had the same fat content as that supplied in : the earlier years from the lower. testing herds, but it has been found that it is much more difficult to manufacture into a high-grade cheese, and the quality of standardised cheese. that has been exported has had a bad effect on our English market. Recent- tests have proved that hightesting milk did not yield as much cheese, to the pound of fat as low-testing milk, and the farmers who were supplying this milk were receiving money that should have been paid to the supplier with lowertesting milk. ’ * ■’ ’

If New Zealand is to regain her former reputation in . this industry it.is imperative that those engaged must use the heavy milking'breeds such as Shorthorns, Ayrshirea and Freisians. To encourage this, milk used for cheese making should be paid on its total solid content and not on fat content only. Perhaps some one of your readers will be able to give, exact figures that have been proved to be relative values, of milk of different fat percentages used in cheese making, and what percentage the high-testing milk . has been overpaid.— -1 am, etc.; ■ SOLID CONTENT. Levin, April 20. 1