Dairy Company Affairs

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 12, 22 December 1933, Page 6

Dairy Company Affairs

Sir, —It is difficult to follow the actions of the directors of our dairy company on certain very important points of policy. For instance at the last General Annual meeting, our chairman stated in reply to a question, that the suppliers had been fully paid for last September and October's supply ofbutterfat, that being why those two months’ supply was deleted from the usual further puymet, or bonus, as it is commonly called. That move, a departure from the usual practice of our company, being a good move in my opinion. And yet in allocating the extra further payment, created by the sale of the latter months of the season’s output of butter, the further payment is spread over the whole season, surely an inconsistent and out <sf date method. It has been said that our company created a dangerous precedent by cutting out those two months, but in my opinion

the departure was long overdue. It is granted that our company is a co-oper-ative dairy, and the principal of co-oper-ation is ideal, if it is carried out on true bnsiness lines, but it is questionable if our directors in some ways, don’t follow the lines of the least resistance. If, as fifteen years ago, we all started supplying the factory in the middle of August and stopped at the end of May, the principle of allocating the further payment on a yearly pool was near the mark, but not so to-day ; because our methods of dairying and of supply has changed quite considerably since then. At the present time some suppliers start the now season in July and are practically finished by the end of March, and others start the season in October and finish in June, owing mainly to the different class of land on which they dairy. Therefore I maintain that these should get paid more in proportion to what the monthly make of butter actually realises on the market, and not overpay the early supply, at the expense of the late supply, which appears to have been the case during the past season. The extra £GIB3 which the unsold stocks of butter at the time of the annual balance over and above the valuation of same, realised, should have been allocated to the supply that was responsible for that extra payment, which 1 understand were the four latter months of the season. Yours, etc., 11. M. THOMPSON.