MILK BOTTLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 6

MILK BOTTLES

WRONGLY DATED CAPS VENDORS NOT RESPONSIBLE STATEMENT BY SECRETARY Any suggestions that milk vendors were indulging in some underhand practice in so far as milk bottle tops were concerned was strongly resented by the members of his association, said Mr W. G. Nicolson, secretary of the Dunedin Milk Vendors’ Association, to the Dally Times yesterday. If there were any discrepancy in the dates shown on bottles the trouble existed at the Milk Treatment Station. “ Not only all bottles wrongly dated and wrongly labelled, but they also carry, at times, caps used in_ the days of the Taieri and Peninsula ■ Milk Company,” he added. Mr Nicolson said that last Sunday one bottle received by a vendor from the Treatment Station had an old Taieri and Peninsula cap on it, another had a red fresh milk cap which belonged to a company long since out of business, and others were wrongly dated. “ The Treatment Station does not bottle fresh milk,” he added. “ but the cap was on the bottle.” Asked if he had any idea how these old caps were used on the bottles, Mr Nicolson said he had not. He alleged that the responsibility was always thrown on the vendor if anything went wrong. Vendors had no opportunity whatever to examine the bottles when they took delivery of them, the speaker said. Further, they frequently signed the book for their supplies before they actually received them, and, once outside the station, the milk could be examined by an inspector and, he alleged, any irregularity for which the vendors were not responsible was placed at their door.

When vendors arrived at the depots with their vehicles to obtain their milk they could not hold up distribution while they examined every bottle. If they did so, the position would become chaotic.

Mr Nicolson said that he understood that when the bottle tops came from the manufacturers they were placed in separate containers—one for each day according to the label on the package, but that was no guarantee that the contents of the packages corresponded with the labels on the outside. Collecting filled bottles from a depot at 2 o’clock in the morning was one thing, but ensuring that each one was covered with a correctly-dated cap was another. It was quite unfair to blame the milk vendor always. Supplies of Cream Discussing the reported statement at the Metropolitan Milk Board’s meeting on Thursday night that plenty of cream was always available from the treatment station for vendors to retail to their customers, a vendor told the Daily Times yesterday that his inability to supply permit cream at times was not his fault. He received his supplies of fresh milk and cream from one of the wholesale companies, but on a recent occasion when he sought cream to supply his orders, none was available. It transpired, he said, that the wholesale house had sent a certain quantity of milk to the treatment station for separating, but the bulk of the cream was retained there instead of being returned for distribution to the vendors for customers who had permits. The company concerned verified this statement, and added that the position would not arise again. The vendor said he found it very difficult to explain to a customer why he had no cream, especially when his customer could see a neighbour going into a nearby dairy and getting cream supplied by the treatment station.