CASEIN MANUFACTURE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 138, 3 August 1911, Page 8

CASEIN MANUFACTURE.

Tiio Sydney “Daily Telegraph” gives particulars regarding proposals ; to establish a casein factory at Lisinoi o. .Mr. S. M. Cot tee, cl' Tregcagle, who lias the matter in hand, relumed from Europe last week. As one personally interested in the success of the dairying industry, and for yens a director of the Noith Coast Co-opera-tive Go., Mr Cotteo is well able to form a, close judgment h what will ho of benefit to it. He states that there is a practically unlimited demand for casein in the celluloid and other industries. The casein is obtained from skim milk by a secret process, the rights of which for Australia have been Required by Mr. Cottec, and as a matter of fact the plant for the initial factory, to lie established in Lismore, is on its way to Australia. When investigating the matter in France, Mr Cottec found the secret of manufacture so close! v guarded that it was not until he had given substantial proofs of ids bona hides that lie was allowed to inspect a factory. That business having boon completed, however, ho was “put through” the whole of the process, and made some of the material himself, which lie brought back with him. While the first factory will be established at Lismore, others will probably follow in various dairying districts throughout Australia. The central depot, or factory whore the finished product is turned out, will be at Lismore, but receiving depots for skim milk, or, as they are known in the trade, precipitating stations, will be established wherever a supply of from 2000 to 3000 gallons of skim milk can bo obtained. At these stations the casein will lie separated from the whey, and the product obtained forwarded into the head factory for final treatment. There will be collecting runs from those stations by vans, similar to the present system of cream collecting, only the skim milk will bo purchased fl'om the farmers at their farms, and they will have no further risk. The whey left after t'ao casein has been precipitated Mr Cotteo will feed to pigs. Farmers who now keep pigs as the only means of using up the skim milk, and desire to still keep up pig-breeding, will be able to buy back supplies of the whey from the precipitating station corresponding to the amount of skim milk supplied. The price to be paid the farmers will, it is estimated, be an increase of something like 100 per cent on the value of tho skim milk as pig food. In other words, where tho skim milk is now worth, cay, Jd a gallon, it would approximately bo worth Ml .vhea sol I to the casein factory. These figures are not given as the actual rates, but they serve as an approximate guide to values.

The project fits in with tho butter industry in that it at once provides a direct market for what'is the waste product of that industry, while, with its precipitating stations, it can work over such a wide range of country that, it will not affect or bo affected by tho condensed milk factory, which is limiting its operations to a 10-mile radius. At present the dairymen of the North Coast, and tho Richmond River in particular, seems to be in a very fortunate position, and with an assured prosperous future. In

addition to the already highly remunerative co-operative butter and bacon factories, there is tho factory of the Ncstlo’s and Anglo-Swiss Milk Co. to be opened at Lismore, which will employ some 209 hands. In addition .to casein manufacture, another outlet for milk supplies is possible. Besides providing, bettor markets for dairymen, these will mean tho direct employment of a large number of hands.