STANDARDISED CHEESE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 20 October 1930, Page 6

STANDARDISED CHEESE.

RETURN TO FULL CREAM URGED. (By Telegraph—Press Association). 'HAWERA, Saturday. 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 Great 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 standardised cheese till the end of 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 standardised, and that an opportunity would thus be given for full comparison. They did not want to rush into changes, he said, but after testing out the position by March, they could ascertain exactly how full cream cheese was faring, and if necessary revert to standardisation. Mr J. R. -Corrigan, who seconded the resolution, said the factories had got away from the Department ’s standardisation formula and materially reduced the fat content below that advised. He -believed there would be a premium on full cream and that eventually standardisation would be abandoned. The resolution was an amendment to the "original motion of Mr J. S. Toland, urging the complete elimination of standardisation. 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 standardisation in the light of enquiries he had made at Home. ‘‘ I regret very much that some people saw fit to throw doubt on the cable sent to the N.D.A. Conference at Hamilton by the New Zealand Produce Importers’ Association in London,” said Mr lorns. “These people have said that * criticisms of -standardised, and particularly that cable, came from some mysterious source —the ‘marketbreakers,’ whoever they are. Mr Ross, Mr Walter Wright and myself were present when that cable was sent, and it was our duty to tell you 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 to Home agents were read to the meeting, practically all making comparisons adverse to New Zealand cheese, particularly standardised, it -being considered that New Zealand cheese would have to improve materially if it were to maintain its place on the Home market. “To get a statement from even one small retailer that New Zealand cheddar is losing its place on the Home market is -serious, but 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, lie added, whi<jh definitely advised producers to cut out siaiidSHliSfd cheese and return to full cream. The London County Council had refused to have -standardised cheese included in contracts made on its behalf. When Mr Singleton was at Home the retailers did not know that standardised cheese was -being made in New Zealand, and that accounted for a lot. Possibly with the exception of certain Waikato interests, everyone would decry stand* prdisation -at Home. If he had had an opportunity to -attend -a recent meeting in Waikato, those resolutions concerning standardisation would not have been passed. “We are damning the whole of our export trade at Home bj sending this standardised cheese,” he continued. “I have seen slimy cheese, made and graded in Taranaki, that was not fit for human consumption. Unle-sr 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 are not standardising. 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 lie could not receive a premium for full cream cheese. Mr lorns believed that so long as a portion of standardised was sent Home, the whole of the Dominion’s cheddar cheese tiade would be damned. Our eheeso had got into such a category at Home that it was regarded as a secondgrade article and was practically branded as skimmed cheese throughout. Indiscriminate -skimming had ruined America’s 'cliecse trade. Fortunately ihad a market in its own country to consume its output. The same could notbe said of the Dominion, which was heading in the same way.