PRESERVATIVES IN BUTTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19098, 17 August 1925, Page 8

PRESERVATIVES IN BUTTER.

The British Ministry of Health has published regulations forbidding tho use of preservatives in butter sold in the United Kingdom. This means that the expected ban on boric acid is to bo imposed. The dairy industry should not be taken by surprise. It i 3 some months Bince an investigating committee recommended that this should be done. There are two factors in tho situation created. Some New Zealand factories have long dispensed with the use of boric acid, proving that butter could be made and exported successfully without it. All butter sent to the United States has had. to be free of it. Therefore others should not find it impossible to comply with the now British stipulation. Also in the controversy that has occurred about the proposed prohibition, it has been made widely known that some New Zealand butter contains boric acid. The sensible course, therefore, is for tho use of it to bo discontinued immediately—despite tho years of grace allowed—and for tho fact that New Zealand butter contains no boric acid to be advertised freely in Britain. Promptitude should be shown in both actions. This is a task that the Dairy Control Board might undertake as one of its earliest activities. Abandonment o? boric acid is inevitable. The regulation is there, and no representations from New Zealand are likely to make any difference. Therefore the proper thing to do is to utilise the situation to push the merits of New Zealand butter just as soon as its absolute freedom from the acid can be truthfully insisted upon in a well-planned scheme of publicity. As the controversy about the proposed ban was used to the detriment of the New Zealand article, there is all tho more reason to make compliance with the new regulation the medium for counterpropaganda extolling its merits. Tho opportunity created by the Ministry of Health can thus be turned to tho advantage of the New Zealand dairying industry.