MILK SUPPLY AND ITS PRICE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1118, 4 August 1893, Page 7

MILK SUPPLY AND ITS PRICE.

A supplier contributes a lengthy letter on the above subject to the Inglewood Recorder. We make the following quotation ; —Care would require to be taken not to make too large an advance on tbe milk (the writer is referring to co-operative factories), paying the balance at tbe end of the season, the advance being regulated by the price the butter was estimated to average for the season. It was estimated that it would realise 9d per pound after deducting all charges for freight, insurance, commission, and other expenses incurred after it left the factory, which ought to be able to advance to the suppliers in proportion to the quality of their milk at the rale of 2|d per gallon for standard milk (3 - 6 per cent of butter fat, equivalent to 10 per cent of cream), and pay the balance in the form of a bonus of from 10 to 15 per cent on the amount the supplier bad already received. As the suppliers would receive all the net profits, and would have to make good any deficiency if they had overdrawn their accounts, it would be more agreeable to receive a bonus than to make a refund at the end ol the season. I don’t think the factory people could safely offer to advance more than 2|d per gallon until their name and brand are firmly established. I am well aware that the New Zealand Dairy Association, in Auckland, intend to pay during the forthcoming season 3d per gallon (10|lbs) for standard milk, with an addition of one farthing per gallon for every one per cent of cream above ten, and expect to make a handsome profit out of it then, but they have got their brand so firmly established in the English markets that they will have no difficulty in getting from Id to 2d per pound over what the makers of a fresh brand could reasonably expect to get for some time, which would make all the difference. A cooperative factory conducted strictly on these lines should prove a success, the suppliers receiving from the first as good or a better price than they are getting from the proprietary factories.

Those whose milk is over the standard fixed would get more value in proportion, and in a year or two, when their batter had acquired a name for itself, in all probably an additional halfpenny per gallon, as the suppliers would get the profits that the proprietors now receive. The system in vogue in Taranaki Qf paying one price, without regard to quality, for milk (as long as it is not below the standard) is decidedly unjust. In Auckland the NZ. Dairy Factory and Messrs Reynolds and Co., Limited, pay in proportion to the butter fat contained in the milk and give better prices than are given in Taranaki. Mr R. Reynolds frankly admitted in Inglewood that the milk ought to be paid for according to quality ; that the firm paid suppliers in that way in the Waikato district; that the change was not at first appreciated, but now they decidedly preferred to be paid in the way indicated.