QUALITY PAYS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 80, 4 April 1923, Page 4

QUALITY PAYS

Step by step, and often in the face of opposition from those primarily interested, the high quality of butter and cheese made in New Zealand for the export trade has been attained. That perfection is not yet reached is apparent from comments made by Mr. Singleton, head of the Dairy Division, at Auckland, last week. He approved of the uniform quality of both butter and cheese exported, and, by the way, this uniformity was the subject of the most favourable comment by Mr. J. A. Ruddick, head of the Dairying Section of the Government of the Dominion of Canada; but there is still room for improvement. Mr. Singleton directed attention to the important matter of the moisture content in butter, and- to a weakness in the manufacture of cheese, by which, when mature, the end of a cheese cracks and may become detached from the main body to the depth of half to a full inch. This pre: judices it in the eyes of the retailer who has to cut it up for sale in pieces. The laws of Great Britain and New Zealand prohibit the sale of butter containing more than-16 per cent, of moisture, and very properly, in the public interest. It is not suggested that butter made for the export trad© and local consumption is now delib-ei-ately water - logged; but it is possible', in the process of manufacture, that the moisture may be unevenly distributed. One part of a churning may contain well under 16 per cent., while an- j other may contain an excess. The defect in the manufacture of cheese can be remedied, it is understood, by the exercise of greater care.

New Zealand's good name as to quality is well established in Tooley Street. It is yet to be more firmly fixed in the minds of the British retailers and consumers. The Dairying Division has a very high ideal as to quality, and it is in the interests of producers directly and of the Dominion indirectly that that ideal should be attained and upheld. Mr. Goodfellow, speaking at Hamilton recently, stated that for the past four months of the season £1,500,000 had been distributed among farmers in the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company alone, and he expected that before the season was over the turnover of that concern would be £s,ooo,ooo—money that will circulate in only one district of the Dominion. The disparity between prices paid for Danish butter and Canadian cheese as compared with New Zealand produce is not always to be attributed to inferiority of the butter and cheese made in this country. Danish butter, which can be delivered in England within twenty-four hours of its churning, so to speak, will naturally command a premium over that carried in freezing chambers 13,000 miles overseas; even so, the average price of Danish butter sold in London during 1921 was but Is per cwt. over that for New Zealand; but last year it was 13s 4d more. New Zealand cheese realised in London Is 2d per cwt. more than Canadian in 1921; but for 1922 Canadian cheese made 5s 4d more than that from this country. High as the quality of New Zealand butter and cheese is, if it cannot go higher the standard should not on any account be lowered for want of care in manufacture or neglect of the highly expert advice which the Government places at the disposal of the dairy-farmer in the general interest.