QUALITY OF FLOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21702, 18 January 1934, Page 12

QUALITY OF FLOUR

MASTER BAKERS' VIEWS

"IMPORTATION ESSENTIAL"

WHEAT BOARD REPRESENTATION

The quality of New Zealand flour was viewed with concern at a largelyattended meeting of Auckland master bakers. The subject was introduced by receipt of a letter from an experienced baker, who contended that in spite of wheat research activities, bakers wore to-day obtaining . poorer flour, made from Now Zealand wheat, than they obtained 40 or 50 years ago. The writor of the letter said he considered the cause of the trouble was the method of harvesting the wheat after growing, and the varieties of wheat grown. It was impossible to-day to make a "decent" loaf of bread without mixing with New Zealand flour a fair quantity of Canadian flour. "I would suggest," he concluded, "that you request the authorities to reduce the duty on Canadian flour so that it would bring the price of that flour to about the same as the New Zealand." In a statement subsequently issued by the Auckland Master Bakers' Association, it was said that the feeling of the meeting generally supported a contention that the New Zealand wheatgrower, protected as he was, was not giving the miller a fair chance to makfl the best flour. In fact, it was admitted that millers could not make the higher grades of flour they were now supplying bakers with without mixing a fair proportion of imported grain with NewZealand wheat.

It was stated that much opposition was ox pressed to recent references made by prominent politicians regarding the quality of New Zealand flour. The general experience of the bakery trade was that bakers, if they wore to make a good loaf of bread, must either buy flour in which a fair proportion of Canadian flour was already mixed, or they must add imported flour themselves. Resentment was also expressed at the meeting that bakers were not given representation on the Wheat Control Board.