MILK SUPPLY

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1932, Page 8

MILK SUPPLY

| WELLINGTON SYSTEM. 1. - g- Sax/.sEY, June 24. *High praise-- for ■Wellington’s municipal milk supply has been givpn to the .Melbourne City Council by Dr. Kent Hughes, Who has ju»t returned from New Zeaiahd. He sard tiler,e was a marked difference iix tne quality - ;of the milk supplied in the two cities, and that‘the YVeHlington Istandard was very much higher than that .-which ruled in any Australian City. More than that, Wellington paid . less , for its milk and the producer received more for pure, milk than was the caise in Australia. ' ’• . , ' ,

Dr. Kent Hughes made a very com-; plete study of the methods employed, at the'Wellington depot, and said that 99 per cent, of all milk received there was first V grade. It contained less than 40,000 germs per cubic centimetre.- A large proportion-‘contained less than 10,000 germs, and, some of it less than 6000 germs. Melbourne milk often contained millions of germs per cubic centimetre!. In the Wellington depot *SOOO samples were tested every month as against a few hundred samples in Melbourne. In fact it could be said ; that the whole of the Weilling'tbn -supply was tho-rdughy te ted, not only for germs but for dirt and so on. In Wellington the milk was brought on a-butter-fat content, so'that there

was every inducement to the producer to supply milk of the highest'quality, the butter cp-ntent sometimes reaching as' high as 4.7. ' , The price to- the 'consume’- in- Wp!l- - last year was 231(1 a gallon anVl to the producer 10 Jcl at the farm gates. Two years ago the price to the consumer was 7d a quart for eight months of the- year and BVd for the four winter m'ontb-s. That reduction said Dr. Kent Hughes, was flue -to the fact that tile City ChnneS'. war fast reducing its interest bill and desired to provide milk at a- small only. This year it boned to bring th* price down to 6d a qusirt. TTo,. nf-int-ri out that- when the City Council "tdric over the milk supply it ra d. o°o In compensation to t-1v» ori"?' 1 ”- 1 distributors in, rit-v. T+s Wl premises cost £I6P a.i’A the o'«t of the original n-remi-ses atnrl, initial l'” s *- es beca-u-se of iiuiox r *r | nence and d’ffiouiliries at- the outset pin non. To-dav the Counril o’ye-1 £135.900 -and still has the origiiial premises as An asset.