MILLIONS OF POUNDS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 256, 12 October 1932, Page 11

MILLIONS OF POUNDS

POSSIBLE SAVING TO DAIRYING. An experiment at present being conducted in Taranaki may, in the future, mean millions of pounds to the dairying industry in New Zealand. Complaints have been received from the Home markets that some of the butter at present being sent from the Dominion suffers from wood taint. The trouble has been confined almost entirely to butter boxed in foreign woods, but rumour has it that certain of New Zealand’s white pine is not above suspicion. A preparation has been invented for coating the insides of butter boxes, which is said to preserve the butter better and to prevent its suffering from wood taint. Stringent tests have been carried out and so far the preparation has proved eminently satisfactory

Reference to wood taint in butter is made in the New Zealand Dairy Produce Control Board’s annual report for the year ended July 31, 1932. The report states: “Complaints of wood taint in our butter have been too common but it is gratifying to note that dairy company directors are taking the matter seriously. A smaller number ol companies arc now using butter boxes manufactured from foreign timber and experiments are being carried out by the Research Institute' with a dressing on doubtful timber, with which there appear to be prospects of success.’’ Apart from the experiments being made by the Besearch Institute, independent tests have been carried out by a leading firm of dairy produce export agents. So far as can be ascertained these experiments have met with complete success and will make possible the use of almost any wood for butter boxes. This will greatly cheapen the price of boxes, with resultant saving to the whole dairying industry.

A New Plymouth connection of the interested company, interviewed by a Taranaki “Herald” reporter, states that adverse reports have been consistently received from the Home authorities concerning wood taint in New Zealand butter. This led his com pany to initiate experiments in an endeavour to obviate the trouble. The waxing of boxes had been tried, bnt while this had achieved some measure of success, it had not been thoroughly satisfactory. After long experiments a preparation was invented, composed principally of a by-product of the dairying industry.

The insides of boxes made of various woods had been coated with the mixture and butter placed in them. Boxes of white pine, tawa, Swedish wood and pinus insignis had been left in the Moturoa Cool Stores for a period of four months and at the end of that time the butter was as fresh and free from taint as the day it was put into the boxes. With a strong pungent wood like pinus insignis this was remarkable and revealed the full possibilities of the preparation. Now the price of butter boxes was excessive, but if any wood could be used production would be very cheap. At the present time a shipment of ten boxes of Waitara-Taranaki butter, boxed in five different woods, was on the way to England, where it would arrive about the end of the month. For comparative purposes one box of each kind of wood had been coated with the preparation and others left uncoated. With woods such as white pine, pinus insignis and tawa, as well as foreign timber, it would be interesting to see how the butter fared. A successful outcome to the experiment would mark the commencement of a new era in the New Zealand butter export trade find would ultimately mean a vast amount of money to the industry.