NEW ZEALAND CHEESE

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9464, 5 June 1909, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND CHEESE

’ INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

London, April 28. A large number of gentlemen Interested in the cheese tradewholesale dealers, middlemen and retailers—met at Gotten s Wharf, Tooley street on Tuesday in response to an invitation from Mr H- O. Cameron, Produce Lommisioner to the'New Zealand Government, to examine a trial shipment of cheese made by the dairy experts of the New Zealand Department ot Agn* culture, uud sent direct to the tugn Commissioner, so that they might be brought under the notice of merchants engaged in the cheese trade here. The experiment, made under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture, was to test the advantages or disadvantages of coating cheese with a paraffin wax, and with this object in view the shipment had been divided into two lots, half coated and half unooated. All the cheeses were weighed to tlie ounce before leaving New Zealand, and again on reaching England. The idea of coating is to prevent evaporation and shrinkage of cheese, and, roughly speaking, it may be said that the paraffin-coated New Zealand-made cheese shrinks, previous to cutting, only about one-half as compared with the unooated or natural cheese. , There can be no question whatever of its capacity to restrict evaporation and by so doing it enables the producer and the shipper to get more for his money all things being equal. But, in all probability, the loss in weight would fall heavier upon the ultimate dispenser as evaporation when out would be more rapid than the evaporation which takes place in ;the unooated cheese. The coating of the cheese with paraffin wax would, as it prevented evaporation, have a tendency to confine within the bulk those gaseous emanations which are always given off in the process of ripening, and, in the opinion of one expert, the coated cheese when out would develop a flavour that would not be beneficial. Another dealer thought that the retailer, finding that his coated cheese shrunk, would want to pay less for this cheese than lor the natural cheese. . . The general consensus of opinion seemed to be against New . Zealand farmers adopting the coated cheese.Both sets of cheese were tasted and compared, and again the opinion favoured the unooated or natnral variety.—London correspondent New Zealand Herald.