COLOUR IN BUTTER

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1929, Page 1

COLOUR IN BUTTER

LONDON, April 5. Flavour is the paramount feature in good butter or cheese, hut the Jact that tlio* judges at dairy shows usually awa'rd 5 per cent of the marks for colour is nil. admission that colour is important. The great success of Danish butter in the markets of the world (says the Grocer) is due in a great measure to the uniformity of coloui; in their butter, hut up to the present even the Danes, with all their thoroughness, were without a fixed standard, and much confusion has been caused from time to time between butter merchants and their clients with regard to the choice of colours. Up to quite recently there has been no means of describing accurately the exact shade of tint desired, and any attempt to do so has always been 11101 c or less “by rule of thumb.” Now, however, an ingenious device has been nut on the market, which solves these difficulties. Hansen’s lmttor colour scale, as it is called, consists of a neat little’ booklet of eight pages, and each nage is numbered and coloured a distinct shade. When a grocer wishes to order butter of a certain colour, he pimply mentions the number, page 1 or 2, as the ease may he, then the creamery manager or butter merchant who may he in Denmark, Ireland, or New Zealand, for that matter, when despatching the order, takes his butter scale and selects butter of the exact colour ordered. Hitherto it was the custom for the grocers, when ordering Imtter to specify “not so pale,”, or “ not so high-coloured as last consignment ” It is obvious that the wholesaler Could not have a very clear recollection of the exact tint of a consignment despatched perhaps weeks or months previously. There are several reasons for variations in the colour ol l,utter the chief causes being feeding, breed of cattle, or the period of lactation. The colours in the booklet arc guaranteed to be uniform and permanent. as numerous experiments were carried out for two years before really satisfactory results were secured.