MILK FOR CHEESE=MAKING

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 26 September 1933, Page 5

MILK FOR CHEESE=MAKING

USE OF MICROSCOPIC TEST.

PETITION TQ PARLIAMENT.

A petition requesting that dairy companies in the vicinity of Hawera who have been grading milk for cheesemaking by the microscopic test be allowed to use that method a® an alternative to the curd test, and not merely supplementary to it, is to be presented to Parliament on behalf of the Taranaki Federation of dairy factories. The petition is as follows. (1) That on May 15, 1933, general regulations under the Dairy Industries, Act, 1908, were made by Order-in-Gouncil for the purpose of governing the manufacture and export of dairy produce. The prayer of the petitioners relates to section 41 thereof which reads as follows: “In the case of milk supplied to a cheese factory nil grading shall be based jointly on (a) the curd test, and (b) either the reductase test or the microscopic test.”

(2) That dairy scientists are unanimously of opinion that certain approved scientific methods with specified standards are satisfactory .in themselves for the purpose of milk grading, and should be so recognised in the regulations.

(3) The petitioners and others have spent considerable sums of money for the purpose of erecting and equipping laboratories and for the purpose of grading milk by scientific methods. (4) The petitioners believe, having regard to their own experiences and the opinion of experts, that compulsory duplication of tests is unnecessary, and in localities where scientific tests are available the ~ regulations should recognise such tests in themselves as adequate methods of grading milk

(5) The petitioners humbly submit that if this petition is not given effect to confidence will be lost in Massey College and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, high officials of which have from time to time public-ally advocated that scientific methods of milk grading are in themselves adequate for the purpose. (6) The petitioners further submit that having regard to the large sums of money being spent on scientific research at the institutions established in New Zealand for that purpose it is time that more regard should be given 111 the framing of regulations to the opinion of the experts maintained’ by those institutions. (7) The petitioners submit that at the present juncture the New Zealand, dairy industry will best be served by allowing freedom in the choice of any one of the three approved tests until time shall definitely establish which test is superior. (8) The petitioners are supported in this flieir petition by the opinions expressed bv representatives of the daily industry at the annual conference of the National Dairy Association held in 1932 and bv a specific resolution passed after full discussion at- the 1933 conference of the association.

The petitioners therefore pray: (1) That section 41 of the regulations be repealed and that in lieu thereof the following provision or provisions of a like nature should be substituted :‘Tn the case of milk supplied to a cheese factory all grading shall be by any one of the following, methods: (a) /The direct micriscopie test, (bi the reductase or methyleneblue test, (c) the cjrnl test. (ID That section 39 be extended to include .the following provision qr provisions of a like nature: <l). YTiere the direct microscopic test is employed (aY the trade of shall be applied onlv to milk which is of clean flavour and appearance and contains not more than 50.000 organisms per cubic centimetre as determined by the direct microscopic count; (b) the grade of first shall be applied to milk which is of clean flavour and appearance, and contains more than 50,000 but less than 1.009.000 organisms per cubic centimetre : (o' the gi-ade of second shall be applied to all other milks.” >2l Where the methylene blue (reductase) rest is enioioved the mimimum times of cleco’orisation for the respective, grade shall be for finest grade 5| hours ,and for first- grade three hours.