BRAND AND QUALITY.

Southland Times, Issue 21118, 25 June 1930, Page 8

BRAND AND QUALITY.

To the Editor.

Sir, —In your issue of June 20 you devote an editorial on the above topic in answer to my letter of the same date wherein my main objection to your boosting the Southland brand was at the expense of standardized cheese which is produced in the North Island. Your arguments are mainly on the lines of the righteous Pharisee and when I asked you to give us some of the "reliable information from the Old Country that sales of standardized have been affected because the Full Cream was carrying the other on its back, you give us one instance of Leggatt and Co., Scotland, not one from Tooley Street where our produce is sold. But lam not out to champion standardized cheese. I am very much in favour of a Southland Brand, but I am not in favour of branding at the factory. I say if you want a Brand at all, do it at the grade stores and then Finest only. If there is anything in our claim that we have the best cheese then the buyers will buy it and neglect the inferior article. The suggestion to brand the cheese at the factory is on a par with the breeder who awards the prize to his own animals at the show. Your reference to Mr Leggatt’s remark

are interesting especially in the light of Veale’s experiments at Hawera. Bulletin No.-9. The Relative Values of High and Low-Testing Milk for Cheesemaking in New Zealand” Page 27: ‘The low testing varieties have shown a tendency to be weak and brittle with mealiness and pastiness.” This is much on a par with Mr Leggatt’s remarks regarding standardized cheese and yet this is the class of cheese advocated by Mr Vcale. Mr Leggatt seenis to doubt that standardized cheese contains the necessary fat, viz., 50 per cent, in the dry matter. He is wrong in his assumption for all stand-

ardized cheese is guaranteed to contain the necessary fat and is regularly tested by our graders. But to return to the real point at issue “quality” Who instituted a premium for quality? Was it not the original Dairy Control Board when Mr Fisher was our representative and we are offering a premium of i]d per crate for finest? Look at the rapid strides that the industry made in quality when that was operating. With the appointment of Mr Timpany to the Control Board came the abandonment of sales through the board, the premium on finest was dropped. There was no incentive (financially) to make finest and quality was sacrificed for quantity and, sir, you must bear your share along with our late member Mr Timpany in bringing about this unsatisfactory state of affairs. Your

paper and your editorials did more to undermine the efficiency of the Dairy Control Board in Southland than you will gain in prestige in the next ten years among the dairy farmers of Southland. It is all very for you to boost "Southland” as a Grand for our cheese. It is small recompense for the loss occasioned j by the failure of control engineered by the • merchants’ representatives on the board and ably assisted by the faithful three from the South Island and practically the whole of the Press of New Zealand. I had the same battle to. fight the. “vested interests” when the Honey Control Board was formed and one man in particular—Mr Murdoch, of Ross —took an annual holiday and interviewed the Press from Auckland to the Bluff and aired his grievance with monotonous regularity and with practically no alteration in his articles. But he was scotched with letters-at every turn and finally returned to his village I though he agreed to debate the subject I with me on the public platform, and then found it convenient to stay at home. If you really want to make an improvement in the quality of our dairy produce I would advise the Dairy Control Board to follow on the lines of the Honey Con-

trol Board. This is a copy of our 1930 grading rates: —White special 99 points 5d per lb advance. White special 98 points 4 11-12 d per lb advance. White special 97 points 4 10-12 d per lb advance. White special 96 points 4 9-12 d per lb advance, and so on, every point down means the loss of 1-12 of a penny per lb. and when the points recede to 88 it is not allowed to leave New Zealand. The producer has the option of taking it back or having it sent to Auckland to be re-conditioned at his expense and either put into a local pack or sent Home. When this system of grading first started our depot at Auckland was filled to overflowing with rejected honey. Now we have to send up our first grade article for the local pack and for the last year or two practically no second grade honey has been sent from Bluff to Auckland.

What has been the result of this policy? Canadian and Californian honey every bit as good as ours are bringing £3O per ton less than New Zealand. Four years ago you made a great hue and cry about the Dairy Control Board fixing prices in London, but we have been doing that all along since the inception of the Honey Control Board, and New Zealand honey stands on a par with the best in Britain. Our export has increased from 80 tons in 1918 to 1166 tons in 1929. If our cheesemakers and assistants were paid on grade note at a price fixed on a sliding scale similar to the honey grading points, I am sure that we would soon see a vast improvement in

the quality of our cheese. Inferior milk would be rejected at the receiving stage and assistants would have a little more incent-

ive to pop over and give the presses another pull before turning in, seeing that it would add to the monthly cheque. While a good deal of the blame can be laid at the dairyman’s/ door for sending inferior milk to the factory, there are faults in manufacture, too, and it would' do our managers and assistants a world of good and I have no doubt they would learn something if -they took a tour through Taranaki and the Waikato and just saw how their brethren . are doing there. At least

they could avoid their mistakes, but I am sure that they would learn something, too. Further, it is my candid opinion that more harm has been done to the quality of our cheese by the Hawera experiments than anyone has any idea. x Dealing first with, the experiments and leaving all reference to breed of cattle out

of the question at present, Mr Veale made 724 crates of cheese, of which 15 crates at 2 per cent, were finest grade and 5.04 per cent, second grade; on re-grading in London over 50 per cent, was classed second grade and yet this is the man who is held up as a patron saint for all to worship, who gives all and sundry advice how to manufacture a first rate article and attacks cheesemakers, the Government officials and dairymen alike. Yet Patea, the port of South Taranaki, is possibly the lowest grading port in New Zealand and we are given to understand that Mr Veale supplies the starters for the factories that grade there. The Hawera experiments have encouraged a breed war and in the north at least quality has been sacrificed for quantity. Mr Veale advocated a system of payment for fat plus casein and the dairymen who milk the higher testing breeds demanded standardization and seeing that they represent 65 per cent, of the dairy farmers of New Zealand carried the day by weight of numbers. —I am, etc., ’ ' ROBERT GIBB.

To the Editor’.

Sir,—Mr R. Gibb is quite correct in stating that at the South Island Dairy Association in Dunedin it was carried that “South Island” be the brand instead of “Southland.” Perhaps it may be interesting to many if Mr Gibbs could tell us what the voting was for and against “Southland, at what stage of the meeting the discussion took place, also if it was a full and representative meeting of Southland factories. Strange to say, in Invercargill at a South Island Dairy Association meeting it was carried that “Southland” brand be adopted. Also it was carried at a Farmers Union meeting. What has our new member for the Control done? Has he turned down the province he represents. He must be fully aware that standardized cheese is being made outside his ward. As regards the monument for Mr Timpany being erected alongside the Soldiers’ Memorial at Woodlands, being a returned soldiers myself and depending on dairying for a living, I think a memorial for him would be fitting for the services he rendered the dairying industry for the time he was on the Control Board. In those factories who took his advice and adopted a selling policy this last few years, every factory supplier could well afford to give £5 to the memorial, and he would not be underpaid. True, as Mr Gibb says, vast numbers of tourists would see it, but I may state that it would only be tourists who would pass it. If Control lasted the majority of farmers would have abandoned their farms and be living about Lome on charity, and the Woodlands Meat Works doing a roaring trade in surplus cows. Mr Gibb seems to be annoyed about Southland cheese taking prominent places in the London Show, and classes it as “bagpipe music.” If Southlanders don’t boost their own province, who docs he expect to ? Now, we will take Edendale Factory with two London Show firsts. These last two seasons especially, the firms who brought in their cablegrams to their New Zealand representatives stated: “600 tons cheese preference to Edendale.” Last season Edendale paid out'l/10g, and this season to end of April 1/8. Perhaps Mr Gibb can tell us about some consigning factory equalling it. All the world over a good article brings a good price, and when buyers see produce branded "Southland,” they are sure of the best, the same as Canterbury mutton brings a half-penny a pound more than other brands. Mr Gibb seems worried about other provinces using “Southland” as a brand on its cheese. I can assure Mr Gibb it would not take him long to find a preventative for stopping me from using my brand on liis “Beeswirg” stud. I am surprised at Mr Gibb advertising the fact that some Southland factory which has a good percentage of second grade cheese, has to be sent to the London dockers for consumption. I happen to know a little about London dockers and their customs and mode of living. Mr Gibb seems to forget the fact that they are human beings the same as himself, and they relish a bit of good cheese along with their pint of the best. Perhaps the shipment of standardized that is returning to New Zealand will make the standardized people pull their “specks” on a bit further. The London docker is no fool, he wants value for his money.

Mr Gibb states that as many as eight agents in one night were at his factory soliciting consignments. Would they not be fools to buy it when they can get it on consignment ? He never tells us how many offers they had to sell it. It may be of interest to Mr Gibb that Edendale followed his example of consigning for two seasons and only lost iif the vicinity of £84,000. Mr Gibb’s bagpipe music! Often I played on the chanter “Will ye no come back again.” During the period of Control more farmers were made financially bankrupt than at any period of the dairying industry. Mr Gibb says it is a lamentable fact that ships are coming out in ballast to take our produce Home, but I can see that they will leave New Zealand in ballast, namely, standardized cheese, and return with the same unshipped. Mr Editor, in conclusion, a word of praise for Mr Middleton for the stand he took and warnings he issued at Dunedin. Southland for Southlanders, and Southland brand for Southland produce. Manufacture the best and give up wild cat schemes. May his health be restored that he will be able to fulfil the invitation asking him to go to the North Island and deliver an address the same as at Dunedin —all seems not well up there. —I am, etc, RETURNED SOLDIER, Edendale South.