OVERHELD CHEESE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1924, Page 7

OVERHELD CHEESE

POSSIBLE LOSSES IN LONDON.

Official and private advices have been received from London of the unsatisfactory condition of unsold cheese that arrived there early in the year. It is reported that a largo part of such cheese so held is soft at the "crowns"—that is, at the top and bottom of the cheese— with the result, in the worst cases, of adhesion of the bottom of the cheese to the crate. The cheese itself would be in first-rate condition on leaving the Dominion, and on arrival at destination, also in store—so long as the weather remained cold. But with the coming of June, and in fact before that, the ordinary atmospheric temperature is usually too high for the storage of cheeße for any length of time, unless in particularly cool cellars. Ordinarily cheese from New Zealand may be -said to pass straight from the ship's hold to the wholesale merchant, so that there has hitherto been no necessity for providing long storage facilities ensuring the necessary regulated temperature. Apart from cold stores, used for meat, butter, and other refrigerated produce, there are but few special facilities available for holding cheese in large quantities for long periods of time.

Some of the cheese affected has been in London since as far back as February last. A loss of only id per pound on cheese through being soft or for anyother reason, and not allowing for ordinary shrinkage, would represent 7s per crate, or on a line of 1000 crates to £350. It is reported that cheeee landed and stored on consigning companies' account, arriving as far back as February last, is still in store. The cost of storagß would have to be reckoned in with the loss in condition. Inquiries made by "The Post" into the matter in official quarters here go to show that some of the cheese that has been longest in store has now been released for sale, where arrangments have not been completed for holding it in suitable cold storage. It was added that cabled reports as to satisfactory conditions of stored cheese about balance those that gave a contrary account of the produce.

Mr. John Fleming, who died at South Dunedin after a lengthy illness, was a well-known produce merchant, and also a prominent member of the Dunedin Jockey Club. He owned Adamant jvhen that horse won the Dunedin GuPi