CITY MILK PLANTS BOUGHT BY STATE AT GOST OF £84,000

Evening Star, Issue 26135, 24 June 1947, Page 4

CITY MILK PLANTS BOUGHT BY STATE AT GOST OF £84,000

(Special.) WELLINGTON, June 24. The purchase by the Crown in Dunedin of the three existing milk treatment houses—the Taieri and Peninsula Milk Supply Company Ltd., the Otago Co-op. Milk Supply Company Ltd., and the Dunedin Wholesale Milk Supply Company Ltd.—was confirmed today by the Minister of Marketing, Mr E. R, Cullen. Approximately £84,000 is involved in the purchase. All three transactions, said the Minister, were based on voluntary agreements for purchase reached with the existing owners, and throughout the period of negotiations the members of the Dunedin Metropolitan Milk Board, had from time to time been kept in touch with the position. The purchase of these undertakings had been - made on behalf of the Central Milk Council, which had recommended to the Government that in all major areas of consumption it was in the publio interest that the treatment of piilk should be conducted by a non-profit-seeking organisation, preferably a local organisation operating under public auspices.

NEW PLANT AT LOGAN PARK. It was intended that' for a short period the plants should be operated by the Milk Marketing Division, which would be given the responsibility of consolidating all three undertakings and successfully transferring them to a new central treatment plant now being erected at Logan Park. By the time this task was completed it was hoped that a purely local organisation satisfactory to both the Dunedin consumers’ and producers’ interests would have:- been set up and be ready to take over the new undertaking from the State and operate it as a public utility corporation. To this end, representatives of both the Metropolitan Milk Board and Producers’ Association had been fully advised of the details of all three transactions and the negotiations for setting up a Dunedin milk treatment corporation would be begun in the near future. PURCHASE OF ZONES.

The three transactions involved approximately £84,000, of which approximately £17,500 represented the purchase of the retail arid wholesale milk distributive zones. In collaboration with the Dunedin Metropolitan Milk Board, these zones would be pooled to facilitate a new rezouing scheme, including the rehabilitation of returned servicemen and existing employees of the companies. Of the purchase amount a further sum of approximately £26,500 represented advance payments for erection and purchase of plant for the new central treatment depot, It was the desire of the Central Milk Council and the Government, added Mr Cullen, to secure, in collaboration with the Dunedin Metropolitan Milk Board and the Dunedin Producers’ Association, a satisfactory reorganisation of the milk treatment industry, which would result in a higher standard of handling and treatment aud greater safeguards to public health '