GRADING BUTTER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 47, 13 September 1907, Page 3

GRADING BUTTER.

The Value of Flavour.

Messrs Weddel and Co., the London produce firm, is advising the Agricultural Department of this country to amend its points tor first grade butter in the direction of allowing 70 points out of a hundred for flavour. The idea of the trade advising a modification in our grading standards is rather interesting. It shows, for one thing, the light in which the trade views the system — the dependence it places on it as a guarantee of qualit}'. In these days, when the State grades are regarded as a true designation of quality the fact is apt to be overlooked that the Government grading of dairy produce was established, and is being carried on, solely as a means of supplementing State instruction and maintaining the quality of our produce. True, the experts endeavour, while carrying out this work of effectively checking the methods of manufacturers, to declare the true quality of the produce for the-benefit of whom it may concern. In grading butter a certain scale of points is used —50 for flavour, 25 for body, moisture and texture, 10 for colour, 10 for salting, and 5 for finish —but the flavour determines, prior to the pointing, the grade in which the butter will be placed; and whether the points for this feature were 10 or 50 there would be no difference in the ultimate result. It is contended, and with good reason, that no butter should go into first grade except it is an absolutely good butter. This is fully recognised by the graders, but the crucial point is that the best butter in the world does not improve by keeping, and that a butter which may be of fairly good flavour at this end, with no second-grade weakness exhibited, may not turn out the same aj the home end. The absolutely choice article will probably turn out as well at Home, but the weaker the flavour the greater the risk of deterioration. There is consequently something in the argument that the points for first-gradelshoukl be of a lesser range, and that instead of the minimum being 88 it should be QO, so that nothing should thereby leave the colony as first-grade unless it is absolutely of fine quality, that is nothing should be allowed to pass into our leading grade which would just scrape through. The Dairying Division however, has brought the grading of butter and cheese to such a fine standdard that they may be disclosed. The New Zealand system is easily the best in th? world, and the men in charge of it are not likely to allow it to suffer in reputation.