FOOD VALUE OF CHEESE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4429, 23 May 1941, Page 8

FOOD VALUE OF CHEESE

REASONS FOR PREFERENCE. LESS SHIPPING SPACE NEEDED Because of its high nutritive value, and the relatively lesser shipping space taken compared with other foodstuffs, cheese was given a high place in the war-time order of precedence for imported foodstuffs by the British Ministry of Food. That, simply, is the answer to those who ask why cheese has precedence over butter and meat exports from New Zealand to Great Britain. The total export for the season ended 31st July, 1940, ,was 1,349,370 crates, or 96,383 tons, representing an increase of 18.2 per cent, and to dairy farmers in the Dominion appeals have been made to increase cheese production for English consumption. For the first seven months of this year 62,877 tons of cheese were exported, against 50,414 tons last year (according to figures compiled from, the Abstract of Statistics). “ My worst problem ” was what Lord Woolton (Minister for Food) said of the cheese supply in England in February. Supplies were So short then that, if cheese had to be rationed, a cube of one square inch a week would be issued to each person; but many did not need even that minute quantity of cheese weekly. No difficulty is expected in finding a market in Great Britain during the war for as much cheese as New Zealand can produce, for besides the demand for it as a food approximately 16,500 tons from European sources have been lost. Pre-war quantities of cheese available annually to Home consumers were approximately 200,000 tons, of which one quarter was Home produced, the balance coming mainly from New Zealand and Canada, with Australia and the Netherlands supplying lesser quantities. Cheese is now sold in Britain without regard to country of origin, the reduction of the price of Home-produced cheese to the level applying to imported cheese operating from last October. While the British Government has made a bulk purchase of New Zealand’s exportable cheese surpluses, the continuance of normal supplies from the Dominion to the smal' markets in other countries is provided for. “ Small ” is a correct description of the cheese trade to countries other than Britain, for only 1353 crates were shipped in the 1939-40 season--60 to China, 127 to India, and 1166 to Canada. QUANTITY ALMOST DOUBLESThe first war-time contract made between the British and New Zealand Governments was for the supply of 84,060 tons , of cheese in the 1939-40 season, commencing with intervals after 20th November, 1939. The maximum retail price to the British consumers is Is Id a lb, or 121 s 4d a cwt. The contract price for finest and first-grade cheese, f.o.b. New Zealand, is 64s 3d a cwt., and charges are' estimated to bring the but-of-store purchase price to wholesalers to 93s 2d a cwt. Though margarine has made inroads into New Zealand’s butter market at Home, the British Government has stated that there is no intention to' influence the post-war situation to the detriment of butter producers in the Dominion, and the Hon. W. Nash has said: It is likely that the post-, war demand for butter will be largely influenced by the selling price compared with that of margarine, by considerations of the relative nutritive value of the two products, and by the export of importations of butter from Continental sources.” Before the war about 515,000 tons of butter were available annually to consumers, or 8 ounces a person a Week, Pre-war consumption of margarine was slightly more than 3 ounces a week. European importations of butter totalled 230,000 tons, and these have been diverted from the English market. Approximately 250,000 tons were supplied from New Zealand, Australia, Eire, Argentine, and South Africa. To provide for the contingency—-which has arisen in recent months—that supplies of butter from New Zealand and Australia would be interfered with, the British Government introduced butter rationing notwithstanding that stocks were then at a record high level, and, so that in all circumstances the necessary fats would be available to the people, arranged the purchase of large quantities of naw materials for margarine. - A sharp increase in the sales of margarine and a corresponding decline in butter sales followed the rationing of butter and its sale from Is 4d to Is 7d a lb, while margarine was retailing at 5d to 9d a lb. FURTHER CHANGE-GVER. The latest announcement of a contract to take 160,000 tons of cheese means a further change-over from butter to cheese production. The dairying industry is of greater importance to the North Island than the South Island, as a study of the export figures for the last season will show. The North Island’s percentage of exports of butter was 98.12 and of cheese 83-430. Shipments of butter and cheese from South Island ports in the 1939-40 season represented the following percentages of the Dominion’s exports: Lyttelton: Butter LO4; cheese, .66. Timaru: Butter, .45; cheese, .76. Dunedin: Butter, .17; cheese, 1.93. Bluff: Butter, .22; cheese, 13.22. “Normal New Zealand supplies” was stipulated a year ago as the quantity of processed milk which Britain would take. The maximum production is now to be taken, and exportations on private account will doubtless be excluded, all supplies going to the Ministry for Food. Before the war, importations to Britain were regulated to assist the reorganisation of the British milk industry and on the grounds that the limitation of imports was essential to the maintenance and development of the industry. The New Zealand quotas for the year before the war totalled. 157,000. cwt., made up as follows: Condensed whole milk, 30,000 cwt.; milk powder, 115,000 cwt-; butter-milk and whey

powder, 12,000 cwt. Just before the war broke out the restrictions were suspended, and, as a consequence, exports from New Zealand proceeded normally. The exports last year were; Dried milk, 140,799 cwt. (valued at £266,000), against 162,328 cwt. (valued at £261,900) in 1939; preserved and condensed milk and cream. 69,197 cwt. (valued at £153,183). against 56,830 cwt. (£115,526) in 1939.