CHEESE PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 227, 21 June 1941, Page 12

CHEESE PRODUCTION

Manawatu’s Hope To Double Last Season’s Output

PLANS WELL ADVANCED

Dominion Special Service,

PALMERSTON N., June 20. With the marshalling of supplies from defined districts to particular factories, working double shifts where the milk is available, the installation of new machinery and extensions to existing plant, it is hoped that the material increase in cheese production recorded in the Matiawatu last season may be more than doubled in the coming one. Plans are now well advanced for a strong, effort to be made to provide this district's share of the increase needed for Dominion production to reach 160,000 tons a year for the duration of the war and a year after. Officers of the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture have met factory directorates recently in a series of conferences to fix boundaries, as far as possible, for the allocation of supplies to the various cheese factories so that the maximum result will be obtained with the least possible inconvenience. Problems have been met on all sides, but close examination and a will to eliminate them have shown that nearly all can be solved. Problem of Transport. Transport early showed itself to be one of the larger items for consideration, as large quantities of milk, bad to be taken to various cheese factories. The Transport Department has been engaged in a survey of the available motor-trucks which might be used. Trucks which have previously been engaged on Public Works Department .undertakings are being considered, and a survey has been made of the available vehicles held by dealers. It is expected that arrangements can be made for the placing of a number of motor-trucks at important points so that they may be employed, under contract or through mutual arrangement, in colleet-

ing the milk. Practically all the cheese factories in the Manawatu are expected to work double shifts, involving the collection of milk twice a day and the provision of extra staff. About 30 hutments have been sought from the State Advances Corporation to house the extra staff, and the National Service Department is engaged on certain aspects of the provision of staff, this having proceeded as far as the withdrawal of cheese-making personnel from military camps when the men were expect-

ing to go overseas. Dairy companies, as a whole, will not not be called on for a heavy capital outlay in the purchase of new plant, though in some cases material has been required. The New Zealand Farmers' Dairy Union is to make cheese in the coming season as a supplement to its normal butter-making; extensions have been carried out at the Longburn factory of the Kairanga Dairy Company; the factory at Hughes’s Line is to work at full capacity; and cheese, in addition to the normal/ dried milk, is to be made at the Glaxo factories at Bunnythorpe. Other factories are to be changed to provide more cool-room space. Provision of Milk Cans. Individual farmers will be called on in some instances for the provision of milk cans, but the collection of supplies twice daily is expected to offset tnis difficulty to a degree. In this, however, there are many individual problems to be cleared up. Butter-making companies are expected to feel very material repercussions in some instances because of the changeover, as all supply, wherever possible, ; s to go to cheese factories, the production of butter being , now a secondary consideration as against that of cheese. Efforts are being made, however, to assist the butter companies where possible, this involving, in some cases, the collecting of cream on milk-collecting runs so that butter company lorries will not be required to run long distances for small groups of supply, but can pick up these small amounts at more accessible points.