N.Z. BUTTER. AT HOME.

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 November 1933, Page 6

N.Z. BUTTER. AT HOME.

(To the Editor)

Six, —In to-day’s issue ox the “Stax” I notioed that a gentleman f l'om tLaniil- [ toil (a grocer) had just returned from } England and that in “the West ot England and Wales New Zealand butter was sold from 561 b boxes and was unattractive and the quality not up to the standard he had been used to| in New Zealand, and where the butter was wrapped the wrappers were not well printed etc. etc. and more efficient salesmanship was required. Now, I only saw a, portion of Wales from the top of a. hill in Worcester, and cannot say just what the condition of the butter as was sold there, but among other butter agencies, 1 visited the Amalgamated Dairies Limited, in Tooley Street and saw to my astonishment cases of 161 b weight being opened and the butter being dropped bodily into a large butter worker (no doubt the butter was } frozen hard) and worked up with a drop of water administered regularly and then it went into- a machine and without any handling went through a bit of manipulating by this wonderful machine and came out wrapped in beautiful oblong pounds ready for the retail market and that without any touching by hand. The agent, •Mr L. B. Wright, seemed to me to be putting. Hundreds of tons of the New Zealand Co-operative’s Anchor Brand of butter through the works and the butter seemed to me when \ worked up, to be of a first-class qualI ity. I saw two machines working, j one a German and the latest, make j (and best) a Swiss machine. The man- ( agement told me it was impossible to J get an English made machine to do I the work (which I must, confess sadv dened me a bit, as I do not like to admit the superiority of foreign machinery). While on the subject of butter qualities, I may say that while in Kingland and Scotland .1 tasted butter as manufactured in England and Denmark and consider the Anchor Brand of butter as made in New Zealand is | equal to anything I saw on tlje market. By the way, when in Scotland I visited a factory that was working up butter in somewhat a. ‘similar method as that employed in Tooley Street, hut they had nothing but a small butter worker and the butter was handled right through the process. The 561 b lumps had to be cut into many slices before putting through the worker and eventually wrapped by hand and the packages had not the same neat appearance as the Amalgamated Dairies’ product had. This factory seemed to be a receiving station for the surrounding district, receiving and consigning to different cities milk, cream, butter, eggs, etc. They also manufactured large quantities of ice cream for the! trade and the man in charge told me] that the butter he was engaged inj working up came from Denmark. lj noticed it carried the New Zealand j fern leaf brand and was marked “Inglewood.” So, as you can imagine, he was trying to pull the “wrong man’s leg,” for I have known the Inglewood district when it was born, or if that is not exactly correct, when it was first christened. While on the subject, I may add that in Cumberland. I know a gentleman who gets a 561 b box of Anchor butter and without caring for it more than nutting it into an old fashioned English dairy, uses it up at a rate of not exceeding three pounds a week and the butter is then of quite good ouality. I used some day after day for several weeks and it was O.K. and this in mid-summer. I should l like to see some of the highly-spoken - of English and Danish product put to the same test. Whilst on the voyage from\Home I met a lady from India who told me she was using New Zealand blitter daily in her home, and that it was first class. I fancy that the talk] about finding markets for our butter | in the East etc. will not benefit New Zealand much, our products being well | and favourably known there now. Our ship left 50 tons of butter at Jamaica on pur voyage to England. What is wanted in my opinion, is for some of our social ~ reformers to raise the Easterner’s standard of living, also his wages and then talk about finding j markets in the East for pur dairy 1 produce. No doubt there are millions of those people who would take our prod nee if they had the wlierewitliall to nay for it. Apologising for the above long yarn, ancl h’oping "that it may possibly interest some of your readers, I am etc., JAMES J. PATTED SON. Manaia. Nov. 7, 1933.