Skim Milk Cheese.

Otago Witness, Issue 2057, 27 July 1893, Page 13

Skim Milk Cheese.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib, — I read with great interest the letter published by you, as having been sent to the Agricultural department of this country, re skim milk cheese. I would like to say a few words through the medium of your excellent paper to those who may be sending this rubbish into the Home market. The three kinds of cheese which have the readiest sale in the retail shops throughout Scotland, and which they get chiefly from Leith and Glasgow, are : First— Ayrshire cheddars. .Second— American and Canadian (and now New Zealand). Third— Gouda or Dutch. Now, I don't think that the second kinds mentioned will ever touch the quality of the first. How it is, I don't'know, but I have sold and handled many tons, and although the Canadian cheddars are sometimes very fine, still they never come to the fine, rich, mellow flavour of the Home cheddar. The same may be said of New Zealand cheese— such as is turned out by the Stirling, Inch-Clutha, Omimi, Fortrose, and Edendale factories (I speak only of those I have tried). These are like first-class Canadian. In the third class, Gouda, the quality and flavour is very unequal. You will sometimes cut up a nice mild cheese with a flavour that no one would object to, and the next you cut up may smell and taste abominably. Now what I want to get at is this : In this latter class of cheese the merchants have as much bad as they can get rid of. You will see it ticketed in the windows at from 3£d to 6d per lb retail. Then .why should we, a young country' in the trade, just beginning to make a name for ourselves, send Home more bad cheese to be stuck up in the windows of the retailers as New Zealand cheese, and sold at a low price to tempt the poor? What is the result? You can imagine it— l can, anyhow.. The first bite the consumer takes is enough for him, and he exclaims, doubtless, as he spits it out, •« Ugh ! no more New Zealand cheese for me," and when in another shop he gets t the offer of good New Zealand cheese made at-a respectable dairy factory where nothing else is exported, the chances are he .won't take it— it is quite enough for him that it is New Zealand. The writer says that such cheese as he speaks ot was sold as low as 10s per cwt. 1 hope, for the credit of our country, that this year it will be unsaleable altogether. I say the makers of such poison should be punished. They are not enriching themselves, and they are damaging every respectable dairy factory,, in the country. Our aim should be to send Home, the yery best, and only that, so that consumers, 'instead of turning up their noses at the mention of our name, will refuse to have any other but New Zealand cheese.— l am, &c, One Who Has Eoijo It. Osvake, July 22.