Maungaturoto Dairy Men Meet

Northern Advocate, 22 July 1938, Page 2

Maungaturoto Dairy Men Meet

The chairman, Mr D. A. Finlayson, presided over a record attendance of suppliers at the annual meeting of the Maungaturoto Dairy Company on Wednesday. More than 200 were present at what proved to be one- of the brightest annual meetings held for many years.

“I am pleased to see so many here taking an interest in their company,” said the chairman in his annual report. “and I am pleased to say that the general operations of the factory have been very successful in the past year, and suppliers should be pleased with the pay-out. Financially, we had some difficulty with legislation raising costs, but here I must pay a tribute to our secretary, Mr Cox, and our manager, Mr Halligan, for the manner in which they have controlled the departments in their sphere. By careful organisation and the economical running of both the factory and the office, costs have been kept down to. a minimum. “The output has not increased as much as we expected under the zoning system, and there are several reasons for this,” continued the chairman. “Chief among them is the difficulty farmers have had in obtaining labour to keep up production, while the bad spring following a very wet winter also affected the output. Suppliers dropped from 338 to 333, a position we did not anticipate. Wo were hopeful that our output would go up considerably, but it has only-risen by a little over eight tons. Had the output expanded as we hoped, costs would not have gone up so much, as they would have been spread over a higher output. Even so, they actually worked out at 1.44 d per lb. “Despite a bad year for grading', we secured third place in the grading list for the Auckland Province as oon> pared with fourth place last year. Non-Existent Guarantee. “The guaranteed price now really does not exist,” added Mr Finlayson, “since the Minister took power to bury it at any part of the season, and sufficient allowance has not been made in the price to meet the increased costs brought about by the new legislation. I hope the price this year will cover the increased costs and allow farmers to carry on and improve their properties. The guaranteed price has been fixed at the beginning of the season and costs have immediately overtaken it. I hope any increase this year will not be wiped out by the fncrease in costs. “During the year I and several other directors attended various conferences and the general feeling was not averse to the guaranteed price at all, but it was felt that the price had been eliminated by the Minister’s action and we are again on a world parity basis. At New Plymouth Mr Nash said there would be a surplus of £900,000, but the price has risen since then, and I think the final surplus will be much larger than that. With the deferred payment of .41 d added, our final payment for the season will be 14.83 d per lb of butterfat. Our total payout will be £131,359, an increase of £6234 over last year’s figure. “The actual increase in costs amounted to £1407, and £SOO of this amount was for increase in the carting costs. Zoning cost us £IO3B, and wo propose to wipe litis out in three years.” The chairman’s report, together with the balance-sheet, were adopted