“NEVER HIGHER”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20622, 25 November 1941, Page 6

“NEVER HIGHER”

N.Z. FLOUR QUALITY PROTEST BY MILLIONS BREAD JUDGES’ VIEWS (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Representatives of the bakers and fiourmillers yesterday disagreed in the strongest terms with a statement of two judges of tiie bread competition at the Nelson show that the quality of New Zealand bread was inferior because flour the bakers were at present getting was bad. The quality of New Zealand flour, they said, was very high and had never been higher than in the last two years. This attack on the quality of New Zealand flour was most surprising because probably never before has it been agreed by so many of those in the trade that the flour quality is so even and generally satisfactory as it is at present, said Mr. R. J. Lyon, chairman of the New Zealand Fiourmillers’ Society. Equal in Baking Quality The weather during the last two harvests. was all that could be desired and the wheat was received in excellent order, he said. It had been proved that the header-harvested wheat was fully equal in baking quality to stack-threshed or stookthreshed wheat, provided the wheat was fully ripe and the weather dry when tire threshing was being done. “It has to be remembered that the millers,are subject to severe tests of quality every month, and no slackness is tolerated by the wheat controller,” said Mr. Lyon. “Actual experience shows that the tests this year are fully equal to any previous year. The best judges of whether the flour and the bread quality is satisfactory are the public, who are quick to perceive any lowering in the usual standard, but all our information shows that there is almost an entire absence of complaints.” “Incorrect and Silly"

“The remarks of the judges, as reported, are, in my opinion, definitely incorrect and definitely silly,” said Mr. F. H. Hawker, chairman of the executive committee of the New Zealand Master Bakers’ and Pastrycooks’ Association, and managing director of Stacey and Hawker, Limited. “The quality of the flour has never been higher than it is at present. This applies particularly to 100 per cent New Zealand wheat meal which is a very fine product indeed,, and. compares, favourably with any wheat meal in the world. It is true that Canadian flour used some years ago gave a decided improvement in the appearance of bread, but that is now largely offset by good flour resulting from New Zealand-grown wheat, in particular Cross 7 strain.

.“In any case, in, war-time, it could hardly be expected that wheat could be imported from Canada in view of the shortage of shipping and other reasons... Possibly there were. t on exhibition, a loaf or two which may hardly have been up to exhibition standard and, if so, this may. have impaired judgment over the whole exhibition.”