HARM STRESSED

Southland Times, Issue 21219, 21 October 1930, Page 5

HARM STRESSED

STANDARDIZED CHEESE.

REGULATIONS PERMITTING MANU-

FACTURE.

SUSPENSION SOUGHT.

(Per United Press Association.; Hawera, October 18.

Following an address by Mr W. A. lorns, chairman of the Dairy Board, on New Zealand cheese quality as he found it on his recent visit to Britain, a meeting of 150 dairymen convened by the Taranaki Dairy Federation to-day passed a resolution recommending the Department of Agriculture to suspend the regulations permitting the manufacture of standardized cheese til! the end ot March and that the position be then reviewed. The resolution was proposed on behalf of the federation executive by the chairman (Mr T. A. Winks) who said the idea was that full cream cheese would be in competition with standardized and there would be an opportunity for full comparison. It was not desirable to rush jpto changes, but after testing out the position by March it could be ascertained exactly how full cream cheese was faring and, if necessary, revert to standardization. Mr J. R. Corrigan, who seconded the resolution, said that factories had got away from the Department’s standardization formula and materially reduced fat content below that advised. He believed that there would be a premium on full cream and eventually standardization would be abandoned. The resolution was an amendment to the original motion of Mr J. S. Tosland urging complete elimination of standardization. A further amendment by Mr A. B. Muggeridge to ask the Dairy Board to call a Dominion conference with the object of securing a proper mandate from the cheese industry was defeated. Mr lorns, who explained that he was not expressing the formal views of the Dairy Board to which he had already reported, condemned standardization in the light of inquiries made at Home. “I regret very much that some people saw fit to throw doubt on the cable sent to the National Dairy Association Conference at Hamilton by the New Zealand Produce Importers’ Association in London,” said Mr lorns. “These people have said that criticisms of standardization and particularly that cable, came from some mysterious source, the market breakers, whoever they are. Mr Ross, Mr Walter Wright and myself were present when that cable was sent, and it was sent in the honest belief that it was our duty to tell you,-the people out here, the facts. For Mr Parlane to say that he had not heard a .tittle of evidence was hardly creditable, but you have to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Replies to a questionnaire submitted by Home agents were read to the meeting, practically all making an adverse comparison of New Zealand cheese, particularly standardized. It was considered that New Zealand cheese would have to improve materially if it were to maintain its place on Home markets.

Facing the Facts. “To get a statement from even one small settler that New Zealand cheddar is losing its place on the Home market is serious, blit when practically every firm says the same, it is time you were told the facts,” said Mr lorns. He had received a cable from the New Zealand Importers’ Association this week which definitely advised producers to cut out standardized cheese and return to full cream. The London County Council had refused to have standardized cheese included in contracts made on its behalf. When Mr Singleton was Home retailers did not know that standardized cheese was being made in New Zealand and that accounted for a lot. Possibly with the exception of certain Waikato interests, everyone would decry standardization at Home. Had he had the opportunity to attend the recent meeting in the Waikato, those resolutions concerning standardization would not have been passed. “We are damning the whole of our export trade at Home by sending this standardized cheese,” he continued. “I have seen slimy cheese made and graded in Taranaki that was not fit for human consumption. Unless you send cheese that contains something else beyond water, we will never get anywhere. Taranaki is not the only area at fault. There is a serious, a very serious, deterioration in New Zealand cheese even in that made by factories which arc not standardizing. There is a tendency towards deterioration in quality, even in South Island factories.”

Replying to a question, Mr lorns said he was surprised that an agent had said he could not receive a premium for full cream cheese. Mr lorns believed that so long as a portion of standardized was sent Home the whole of the Dominion’s cheddar cheese' trade would be damned. New Zealand cheese had got into such a category at Home that it was regarded as a second grade article and was practically branded as skimmed cheese throughout. Indiscriminate skimming had ruined America’s cheese trade. Fortunately it had a market in its own country to consume its output. The same could not be said of the Dominion which was heading in the same way.