THE BUTTER MARKET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 22

THE BUTTER MARKET.

A VALUABLE REPORT. J Messrs Weddel and Co. have issued the following report, dated August 25, to their New Zealand agentt*: —" We have now sold for New Zealand factories a large quantity of butter, unealted and without preservatives, and think it necessary and wise to advise you that it is of the greatest consequence that the factories should do all that is possible to let this butter arrive on the Continent sweet and in the best possible condition. We suggest you call the attention of the factories_ to the advantage this new market will be year after year, if the first great experiment the foreigner is malting in New Zealand butter should turn out thoroughly satisfactory. It will mean a new and permanent outlet for the New Zealand butter. As you are aware, butter without salt and without preservatives is a very delicate article, and when cut _ of cold store will not keep so lonpr as if it had salt and had preservatives. Will you, therefore, instil into the minds of the directors of each factory that the utmost care should be taken, especially during the hot weather, to see that their creim is in the best possible condition, and that no amount of cream, however smal!, which is tainted or which is out of condition should be allowed to be made into nnsalted and unpreserved butter. We shsall be very disappointed if any neglect or any laxity be allowed to exist in the factories of New Zealand over its manufacture. On the Continent, in larcre towns, and on the tables of the middle and wealthy classes I choicest butter is always to be found. There is no article of diet on the Continent which the people are more particular about than in their butter; jn Paris esneoinllv. They have a butter in Paris called 'lsigny,' which is known all over Europe, and it sells ordinarily every summer at 2s 6d per lb. In the north of Italy, in the Lombardy Plains, the Italians make a butter op very hisrh quality, but not eo (rood as ' Isigny.' We have had unsalted butters from New Zealand which at times reminded us of ' Isijrny' and the Italian butter, and if New Zealand could establish a hisrh quality standard for its unsalted butter it would _ benefit it, as you can see, very materially. There is no natural law that -prevents Now Zealand making as good butter—not as pood as ' Ifiisrny ' we admit — ra the best Italian and tho best ordinary French, other thfltt

'lsigny'; but to do this the utmost 3lean.li.ness in their utensils, the utmost 3are by.the manager of the factory as to the quality of the cream he takes m, and altogether the best efforts of the factory must be put forward if it wishes to attain to that high standard. Pacteurisation has now spread fairly widely over New Zealand, and along with it there is too much belief that pasteurisation is a restorative process; it is not a restorative but a pre* ventive. That is, if you pasteurise your cream or milk early, before any deterioration has taken place, then your butter will keep very much better and longer than, if deterioration had already begun. lo understand this process properly, bacteria in milk and cream are similar to yeast in brewing; in fact, yeast and bacteria are both micro-organisms, and closely allied, and in both cases the higher the temperature the more rapidly do these organisms multiply and break down the sugar of malt "and the sugar of milk. This breaking down produces at the beginning the fine flavours, but when continued long enough for them to exhaust the sugar of imalt and the- sugar of milk then comes the bad flavours —another environment has been created and other organisms are producing bad and foreign flavours. Of course after the butter is made great care is necessary to keep it 000 l and out of all hot atmospheric conditions, both from th<s factory to the railway, while it is on the railway, and between the railway and the ship. This may seem to you, and, perhaps, to the managers of the butter factory, like attempting to teach their own business, but we have no desire to dictate to the factories; all we wish is that; the utmost possible care be taken so that this great development may not only make an excellent start, but establish a sound reputation." Mr J. R. Scott, secretary of the South Island Dairy Association, has forwarded the following reply to the circular received by him:—"l admire your letter, in re care of butter. I agree with you that much harm has been done by relying on pasteurisation, which after all is only a palliative—a scrubbing brush is still as ever a more valuable dairy_ implement than any, and beats pasteurising hands down. As regards our unsalted butter on the Continent, I should be glad to hear that it sees tha light of day as what it is represented to be. I believe, however, the bulk of it comes back to Britain with 90 per cent, of oleo mixed with it, and eroes into confcumption as margarine. Margarine will have a great run this season."