NEW BUTTER MILK POWDER FACTORY AT EDGECUMBE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 80, 23 December 1949, Page 5

NEW BUTTER MILK POWDER FACTORY AT EDGECUMBE

With the installation of a new plant to -manufacture dried butter milk powder the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Factory has started on yet another venture in the dairy produce world. Production commenced on Monday and although-the full plant is not in operation yet it is expected to be early in the new year.

Dried butter milk powder is used extensively by chocolate and biscuit factories and the bulk of the supply manufactured at Edgecumbe will be exported to England, where it has been purchased by the Ministry of Supply. The process of producing the powder is very simple. The butter milk is -pumped from the churning room to the powder factory, where it is taken across hot steam heated rollers. Here it is dried and turned into a flaky film and then crushed into powder form.

The Rangitaiki factory ‘is one of many in the' North Island that is already producing the powder. Although no actual figure of what the production will be can yet be given, it is considered that for every 5000 tons of creamery butter 500 tons of dried butter milk powder will be produced. The disposal of butter milk has always presented a problem to most New Zealand factories. In some cases it was sold as pig food, bht at Edgecumbe the Rangitaiki factory attempted to go one step further and used it to feed pigs on the factory-owned pig farm. While this helped to solve the problem to some extent it was still not fully satisfactory because of the waste involved.

Now, with the new factory turning the butter milk into a product for human consumption, the problem appears to have been solved, but the’powder will only be made so long as there is the demand and a reasonable price' from Britain and other markets.