NEW DAIRY FACTORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21503, 29 May 1933, Page 5

NEW DAIRY FACTORY

EFFORTS TO OBTAIN LICENCE PORT ALBERT COMPANY'S MOVE [from our own correspondent! WARKWORTH, Sunday Efforts are being made by the directors of the Port Albert Co-operative Dairy Company to obtain a licence. to re-erect its factory at a site on the railway line afc or near Wellsford. The present factory is seven miles from the railway. In the event of the licence being granted, the present Hakaratf factory will be closed, the Hakarau Cooperative Dairy Company having ' decided to amalgamate with the Port Albert Company as soon as practicable. Farmers at present supplying the Kaipara Co-operative Company's factory at Helensville, whose supply totals over 250 tons of butter, have guaranteed to supply the proposed new factory on its erection. The new factory is stated to be assured of at least 750 tons of the 1050 tons of butter from the district. N - Following the Port Albert Company's application, the Kaipara Company wrote to the Minister of Agriculture opposing the granting of the licence, on the ground that it was unnecessary to erect another factory, as that at Helensville could easily cope with thesupply from the .district in question, and that economic conditions did not justify heavy expenditure on new buildings and plant. The Department of Agriculture communicated with the Port Albert Company, suggesting a compromise with the Kaipara Company > which at present handles about half the total supply of the district, and urging that overlapping of services be avoided. Th-3 Port Albert Company has replied to the department stating that as it will soon be necessary to reconstruct and modernise its present factory, it. would be sound economy to move it to the railway and to establish . a factory large enough to handle the whole of the district supply. It is maintained that it is cheaper to rail the butter to Auckland than the cream to Helensville.The Port Albert Company holds that tho cost of building the factory will be saved within a few years by the -improved facilities, and that the contribution of those at present supplying the Kaipara Company will be paid by their increased returns owing to the higher grading of their cream consequent, on its more rapid and more frequent collection. The Port. Albert Company is pressing for the appointment of a commission to investigate the position.