THE DAIRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1266, 4 June 1896, Page 4

THE DAIRY.

THE COLOURING OF DAIRY PRODUCE.

One great essential to the successful export of butter (says "Thistledown " in the Australasian) is ifs uniformity of colour. This is quite a separate thing from quality, although, as a rule, buffers ofdiflerentqualify vary considerably also in the colour. There is no standard colour for buffer, and rach farmer olfactory colours to suit his or its own particular fancy. Consequently, butters of many different shades come into the market, and when purchased for export, they have all to be mixed or " milled " to make the shipment suitable for the export trade. Were all the butter that is produced in the colony of one uniform colour, we should hear very little, or at least a great deal less than we do, of the enormity of tho middlemen who are compelled to mix in order to give the produce a presentable appearance. This is one of the defect.', inour system of butter-making, and, so far, no efforts havo been made lo remedy this particular fault. Mr Sinclair has reported that the Danish butter is all uniform in colour, and that it is of a paler shade than the Victorian article. The lighter shade, it seems, is preferred by the merchants of London and Manchester. If that be so, then it might be suggested that the Department of Agriculture should obtain through Mr Sinclair some exact lithographs of, say, a half-pound lump of butter, showing the colour that is most preferred in the London market. If these were circulated amongst the factories and dairy farmers of this colony, with the advice to frame them, so as to preserve the tint, and to aim at producing butter as near as possible to that colour, it would doubtless help to give the butter of the colony a much more uniform appearance. A step further in the same direction might bo taken with advantage by the dairymen and associations in comparing samples, for instance, and arriving at a conclusion as to which colour is the most suitable to the trade generally. It is, of course, only a matter of using moro or less annatto, and it is not at all creditable to say that a standard colour for export butter has not yet been adopted in Victoria. Uniformity in colour is of fat more importance in the butter trade than many of the producers seem to realise.

TIIK N.YTUIIAL COI.OL'It OF BUTTER. The natural colour of ripened cream (says the same writer) is a slightly yellowish oi' orange tint, more especially in the case of some samples, as from the Jersey breed of cattle, and the public from time immemorial have demanded that dairy ptoducts should have this pale straw colour more or less pronounced. While some butters, therefore, have this tint naturally, such as those which are produced by a fresh cow on the rich spring grass, it is found that for marketing purposes artificial colouring is necessary ; and custom and habit have trained us to prefer a rich yellow butter in preference to white, There is plenty of genuine butter that is white as lard. Cows that are fed on straw and roots and rape cako produce splendid butter, but it is so white it looks like clarified tallow. Much of the Danish butter is of this class, and it would be unsaleable but for the skilful colouring. In old times, and occasionally even yet, tho butter waa coloured by grating down carrots and straining off the coloured gap for mix*

ing with the cream. J3y that means much or little colouring might go in, for the carrots were not always alike! fresh, and the result was tint the butter was higher coloured one week than another; there wan no means of gauging ihe proper quantity to use, and there was consequently no uniformity, later on annatto was discovered as a colouring for butter, and it is now used almost universally, various preparations of it being sold by the dili'erent makers. One is about as goo.l as the other. Annatto is made from the seed of the tropical shrub, bixa orellana. The kernel is surrounded by a pulpy sub Blanc, which contains the colouring material, and when macerated in caustic soda or other decoctions it yields the preparation, which is used either in solid tablet form or as a liquid. It is a harmless substance, and in no way affects the flavour or quality of the butter—it only altera its colour. In this, as iii many other matters, the rye has to be satisfied hi fore the palate, and butler has to be made to sell. Moreover, in order to provide the much talked of uniformity in butter samples, makers cannot avoid the use of colouring material at certain seasons of the year or under certain conditions. Butter is naturally a rich si raw colour at cue time and pale at others, and therefore something has to be done to counteract these periodic changes.