STANDARDISED CHEESE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 40, 15 August 1930, Page 4

STANDARDISED CHEESE

A FARMERS' DISCUSSION

(By Teleflraph.)

(Special to "The Eveninfl Post.")

MASTERTON, This Day,

Standardised cheese was a subject of discussion at the meeting of the Provincial Executive, of the larmers' Union yesterday. Mr. H. Daysh, who brought up the subject, said that dairy farmers had been told by the Director of the Dairy Division that they would be right to separate milk for cheesemaking down to a certain point. Our cheese to-day, however, had a bad name in the Old Country. They had been told that if they produced 3.6 or 3.7 per cent, cheeso they would get a better price than was obtained for New Zealand 4 per cent, cheese. What they wanted to know was whether they should standardise or go back to full cream cheese, so as to get as good a name for this product as for lamb and other exports. He thought it only natural that people should prefer full cream cheese.

Mr. J. H. Bremner said there was no question that the cheese industry at present was in trouble. Payment for milk to be used in making cheese should be made, in his opinion, on cheese content and not on butterfat content. Hostile criticism was largely due to the production of standardised cheese. He believed there had been some criticism so strong that it .had. not reached the public' When he visited Taranaki recently, he heard some very strong criticism. In. Southland, where there was no standardisation, the percentage of iinest grade cheese last year was between fifty and sixty, compared with 16J per cent, in the North Island. It was impossible to incorporate separated skim milk into cheese without affecting tho flavour. Separated slum milk had a taste, flavour, and smell entirely its own. When a large proportion of this 6kim milk was incorporated with whole milk, the cheese retained the flavour of the skim milk. His opinion was that dairy farmers should produce milk not too rich in butterfat for cheese pro-, duction.

It was estimated that standardisation meant another three-farthings per pound of butterfat, but against that there were, some additional costs.