QUALITY CREAM AND PIRATE LORRIES.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 11

QUALITY CREAM AND PIRATE LORRIES.

The undertone of the Imperial Economic Committee's report on dairying ii that New Zealand must prepare for keen competition (pointing to lower prices) from countries with low-living standards New Zealand must produce more butter, at less cost, and of higher quality. The new law compelling payment according to the grade of cream received at dairy factories Is one step towards higher quality, now difficult it has been hitherto for a dairy factory to insist on quality or even cleanliness of cream may be judged from complaints made at the annual meeting .of the Rexdale Cooperative Dairy Company (Pahlatua) concerning the competition existing among cooperative companies for one another's suppliers, whether thoEe ' suppliers send milk clean or otherwise. The chairman (Mr. P. Lawson) thought that "co-operatives" should have a higher ideal than to steal one another's suppliers. Mr. J. Curie (Government Dairy Inspector), who was invited to speak, said that if a factory manager set himself out to try and get improvements brought abont on the farms, it was found in quite a number of cases that the farmer took umbrage, and thinking that he was made independent by reason of the fact that cream lorries p»seed his gate, he "imply continued his careless habits and sent his cream to a factory which took It in without question. If this sort of thine were Minwed to continue much longer, it would spell disaster for the Industry. The position of co-operation was being challenged by co-opera-tive concerns themselvej. In the Pahlatua district no less than, eleven cream-collecting lorries were overlapping. He know of another district where, vhenever 300 went Into It now, was absolutely overran with cream collecting lorries and directors' motor-cars | running about "like mad" after cream, one factory cning as far as 50 to 60 mile* to collect from suppliers whom they had tempted to Ipuve their own factory. The pirate cream lorry destroyed managers' attempts to lmr>rove_ the standard. He advocated the Intrnduet'on nf farm instruction. To this Mr. tawson was favourable, but he-i o=ked what would be the effect on their cream suonlv If the Hexdnle Company adopted farm instruction—which meant "putting the wood" on careless suppliers—if these supnliers could simply accept the Invitation of rival concerns, and take their milk or cream t,h°re? He thoucht it was a bigger matter than Mr. Curie realised for them, in the midst of the rush for sunply, to take the first step in a drastic campaign for cleanliness, which would _prove abnrtive unless suppliers were prevented from taking to other concerns milk and cream which wm "helo-w nar."