CHEESE DETERIORATION

Taranaki Daily News, 3 October 1930, Page 9

CHEESE DETERIORATION

THE BRITISH CRITICISM A SCEPTICAL NEW ZEALANDER. f INSPIRED PROPAGANDA CLAIMED (By Wire—Special to News.) Hamilton, Last, Night. Interviewed with reference to a cable wrani said to have been sent from London to the effect that British official contracts for the supply of cheese stipulate that this must be full cream, Mr. C. J. Parlane, general manager of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, said cheese producers in New Zealand need not be in any way dis turbed by the information conveyed in the message referred to, for obviously if a quantity of what was termed “full cream’’ cheese was purchased undei contract this did not in any way reduce the amount of cheese needed to meet market requirements. “Much of the propaganda at present appearing in the Press with regard ,to standardised cheese, which our ownfoolish regulations compelled us to specially brand as an inferior article,” said Mr. Parlane, “no doubt emanates from grinders or blenders, who have hitherto used substantial quantities of New Zealand’s high fat content cheese for blend - mg with comparatively low fat content ‘full cream’ cheese manufactured ni Canada and the United Kingdom, or possibly skim milk cheese from Holland, with considerable profit to themselves. Deprived of these profits, the grinders are now using precisely the same arguments in regard to our cheese that £he blenders used in regard to our butter when we decided some years since to increase the moisture content from an average of approximately 9 to 15 per cent., the claim then being that we had ruined the quality. On that occasion, like the present, persons in responsible positions in the dairy industry in Ne\y Zealand became panicky and repeatedly warned the producers that they were running the industry on to the rocks. Notwithstanding this, however, the producers refused to be stampeded, with the result that they firmly established their future policy, and thereby brought into New Zealand hundreds of thousands of pounds that would otherwise have gone into the Sockets for the butter blenders in the United Kingdom. It remains to be seen whether the cheese producers are going to stand firm on the policy they have decided upon, at least unt-jl such time as there is' some evidence that such policy is detrimentally affecting their industry.”. ' Mr. Parlane said his company had kept in very close touch with the position in London, but up to the present had not one tittle of evidence that standardisation of milk for cheesemaking was in any way responsible for the difficulties that were being experienced in regard to quality of the cheese, whilst, on the other hand, a .point, that did very materially affect suppliers to his own company’s cheese factories was the fact that their butter-fat payments were, during last season, increased on the average by about ifd per lb. but-ter-fat over and above what they would have received had full cream cheese been manufactured. i

Mr. Parlane ©aid he was firmly of opinion that much of the comment appearing in the Press concerning. the quality of New Zealand cheese wa© a gross exaggeration and not one bit helpful to the industry. Admittedly there was room for improvement in the quality of the cheese, but the difficulties in this respect were not insurmountable and by concentration of effort would be overcome. His company v.ns leaving no stone unturned, to this end and had . indeed gone the length of offering to tho Dairy Division under certain conditions the use of. one of its factories for a full season, or seasons, if necessary, in order that experiments might be carried out under average working condition©. Unfortunately, however, the department had not yet -een its way clear to accept this offer.

“The plain : fact remains, ' however,” h© added, “that the only cheese available to tlie British consumer to-day with a guaranteed minimum fat content of 50 per cent, in the dry matter is the standardised article produced in New Zealand, and it does appear ridii .lou© that such cheese must be specially branded while an inferior food product containing as low as 45 per cent, of fat in the dry matter is allowed to be sold as full cream cheese and used to prejudice what is really a higher grade article.”