NEW BUTTER BOX

Hokitika Guardian, 24 August 1931, Page 4

NEW BUTTER BOX

WOOD PULP CONTAINERS

OPENING FOlt LOCAL INDUSTRY,

Interesting arguments in favour of New Zealand butter producers adopting the use of the wood pulp containers for their butter, which are becoming increasingly popular overseas, are advanced by Mr A. Hanson, managing director of the Kaipara Dairy Company, North Auckland, in the current issue of the .“Timber Growers’ Quarterly Review,” the official I ‘drgan of the

New Zealand Timber Growers’ Association. After stating that the cost of white pine boxes is Is od each, Mr Hanson states that the introduction of the wood pulp container for packing would result' in an enormous saving in this respect, for the landed cost of each container was only lid, and in quantity manufacture the cost could be reduced to somewhere near Bd. Taking the first figure for comparison, there was a saving of 6d per box, as compared with the white pine container, and on this basis the total saving in package costs alone to the New Zealand dairying industry would he £95,0C0 every 3’ear. On the basis of a saving of 9d per box, allowable in the case of manufacture of any great quantity, that figure would reach £142,500 ahtitiallju

Another advanced in fav* - our of the pulp container was that the difference of five pounds in weight allowed a big reduction, in transport costs, and made for quicker and easier handling.

The pulp boxes weigh under three pounds, are made in one piece, and through the absence of longitudinal gaps are proved to a certain extent safer from a sanitary viewpoint than even the white-pine box.

• “The container is in its experimental stages, hut I am personally satisfied that it is the container of the future,” Mr Hanson stated. This was more particularly the case for two reasons. The first, the scarcity of white pine, and, second, the superiority of the pulp box to the imported foreign article.

One of the pulp containers had had its first try-out in actual practical use ; butter had been packed in it and exported to London. Reports received from London agents in regard to it had justified the formation of a very favourable judgment as to the future value of the container. Alterations would be necessary, the aim being to get as near to the white pine container in appearance as possible. Mr Hanson’s final contention that the adoption of the container provided reason for the opening of a new industry in 'New Zealand, is given strength to when lie points out that in using boxes made of sawii timber pinus insignis and spruce could iiot he used because of the resinous taitit which these WSods impart to the Sutter. In pulping these tim» bets, the resin and oils are extracted, and this objection removed, Here was a oig outlet with a guaranteed turnover for a pulp produced from the xrees grow, ing in New Zealand’s great commercial plantations.