DAIRY SHORTCOMINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 48, 27 February 1933, Page 10

DAIRY SHORTCOMINGS

GO ABROAD AND LEARN

Advocating more direct and " personal touch between the manufacturing side of dairy produce and the oversea marketing side, the "New Zealand Dairyman" again urges the sending of selected factory managers oversea for. educational purposes. "This lack of personal touch, this want of understanding as to <the consumer's taste and requirements, costs the country many thousands of pounds every year. -It is only too apparent that the complaints made by the London importers .(for obvious reasons much too guardedly worded as a rule)-and the reports sent out;by representatives of the "Dairy Division and Dairy Board accomplish, very little and fall far short of actual requirements. -■■■■- . ''What is required is that three or four of our foremost butter and cheese makers be .sent overseas to study on the spot various problems that more or less regularly crop up, ,in connection with the nature and. quality of our produce,.as well; as the latest-: machinery, equipment, and 'methods of manufacture adopted by our competitors. Who would maintain that* our. buttermakers would not gain valuable: information" from ' their Danish colleagues,regarding tlie use'of' starter, pasteurisation, texture, spreadability; and the -handling of milk and cream generally; or that our cheesemakers would not profit similarly from a ; study of Canadian methods? , And what a. comprehensive field would be opened to them when studying the latest equipment and scientific appliances in Germany and the United States of America. "When • dealing with this subject on previous occasions we. pointed, out . that every dairy country in the -world, with the exception of New Zealand, is sending representatives each year to England and the Continent for educational purposes. Even Palestine; jW^th :its;:three*:ne^r';facv: toriesj sent-.,a. man overseas 3bwards2jtnei end.of last year. Yet we in New Zealand, the greatest dairy producing exporters in the world, labour under the illusion, either that we cannot afford to give some of our best men an international education or that we are «o.perfect'^; ourJ methods that we can-afford to dtf without' it. . Viewed in'the lightiipf r.the magnitude" of the,industry,.the, cost involvecl:;:in, suGh_ a policy would be trifling "compared with the benefits to be derived therefrom." Speaking from personal experience, the "Dairyman" states: "When in England ■three years ago we saw New Zealand cheese on the grocer's counter for which we blushed with shame; and we tasted butter, unmistakably New Zealand butter, which we' would have- gladly disowned. We visited towns' where New Zealand butter had never been heard of; and.others where,grocers sold New Zealand cheese as Canadian and New Zealand butter under any'other name but New Zealand in order to find purchasers."