Butterfat and Cheese

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 1, 9 October 1931, Page 3

Butterfat and Cheese

High testing milk, the butter factory supplier’s ideal, is an actual cause of loss to both the cheese factory and its suppliers- now that standardised cheese has been banned, said Mr. P. O. Veale, the scientist of the Taranaki Federation of Dairy Companies at the annual meeting last week.

If they could not change the farm and factory systems to suit the milk, they would have to get back again to the type of milk which once suited the farm and dairy practice. In doing so they would get back to the type of milk from which the highpriced “English Farmers’ ” and Canadian Cheddar cheeses were being made, and would considerably improve their chances of appealing to the tastes of consumers and securing an advance in price.

Butterfat was being given away for nothing through the industry committing itself to high testing" milk for cheese making, and that had been done for years, declared Mr. Veale. It was all very well for producers to congratulate themselves upon their butterfat returns, but if they proceeded to give away from 10 to 15 percent of that butterfat in superfatty cheese, selling at a lower rate than that of their competitors, what was the use of their splendid butterfat returns?

Marketing experience for many years proved that English merchants and consumers would not pay any premium for the extra butterfat in New Zealand cheese, and, in' fact, seemed more inclined to take an opposite course. English prejudice against so-called “part-skimmed” cheese had prevented New Zealand cheese producers from extracting and selling as butter the surplus butterfat available under standardisation. So now, for the sake of the name “full cream,” they would be forced almost to give it away. “Once upon a time, when cheese milk was paid for by the gallon, at a flat rate, the high-yielding gallon of milk was penalised,” said Mr. Veale. “A direct incentive was offered to ‘go for’ gallons, irrespective of cheesemaking value. And those who could not get quantity sufficiently quickly by breeding, got it in plenty by adding water. To correct this tendency the butterfat system of payment was introduced.” Although producers were apt to scorn the old “gallon” system, Mr. Veale considered that they were in precisely the same position today with the butterfat system. Obviously the proper thing to do was to institute a system of payment which would attempt to pay for butterfat according to its cheese-yielding capacity. They must abandon the democratic fetish that all butterfat was of equal value for cheese making, and was to be paid for at a flat rate. There was serious opposition against steps advocated because there were parties who would be penalised by the reforms. Since they were very much in the majority they continually blocked the reform when it was put to the vote, or, more commonly, denied the necessity for reform and prevented discussion being brought forward.