Safer and Cheaper Milk

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 439, 22 August 1928, Page 8

Safer and Cheaper Milk

New Scheme Mooted for City

THERE is a weighty school of thought which believes that Auckland requires safer and cheaper milk—particularly in the summer months, when the humidity of climate necessitates careful handling of our staple foods—and vigorous endeavours are being made to establish here a milk distributive system upon the lines of that now successfully operating in Wellington, but without the control of the Auckland City Council.

The distribution of milk in a state desirable for human consumption constitutes a problem which, although not peculiar to Auckland, is more acute at this end of the Island than anywhere else in the Dominion on account of the heat during the mid-sum-mer months, and the eyes of the authorities have to be focused with meticulous precision upon the system -which is now operating under a multiplicity of controls. The movement for unified control of the city’s milk supply—or at least the bulk of it —has been instituted by the farmer suppliers themselves, who are at present In active negotiation with certain interests as a step toward

this end. They believe that success will attend their efforts to persuade the biggest vending firms to pool their operations—for a consideration, of course—and work under a co-operative plan, with a price-fixation board as the deciding factor in determining ruling rates. It is suggested that public interest will be preserved by City Council representation on this board. There are two • very sufficient reasons why the City Council would not be asked to assume control. One is that it would not wish so to do, and the other is that, after the disastrous experiment with the municipalisation of the city fish suply, the ratepayers would raise their voices in protest against further public commercial enterprise. In other respects, however, this scheme would emulate the example set

by the city of Wellington, where the municipal milk department has shown a surplus of £15.000 for the past four years, after writing off previous losses of approximately £24,500. This satisfactory financial position, which is combined with a safe and a cheap product, has been made possible by the reduction in overhead distributive costs, which upon investigation were found to be the chief cause of high-priced milk. During last year th retail price to the public was 6d a quart for eight months and Td a qua for four months —slightly higher than the retail price to the consumer in Auckland.

The milk department, operating under special legislation, handles approximately SO per cent, of the city area milk trade, the whole being distributed in sealed bottles and paid for in advance on the bronze token system. The city is divided into blocks, and the average one-man daily delivery is about So gallons. The other 20 per cent, of the supply comes from farmers within a two-mile limit of the city boundary, and is delivered under the old system. In Auckland, approximately 20 per cent, of the milk is delivered in bottles, about 75 per cent, of the whole supply being distributed by the three biggest vending firms, and the remainder by about 60 small milkmen. The city is not blocked, and deliveries overlap indiscriminately, with wastage in distributive costs. It is believed by those who are moving for the establishment ol a centralised system that the price of milk to the public would drop almost immediately upon the operation of an organised blocked delivery Possibly the greatest consideration, however, is that of sanitation and health. Pasteurisation and chilling become necessary before the milk is ent from distributor to consumer, nd in summer the slightest laxity in lealth supervision opens the door to lisease. In Wellington a special laboratory is conducted conjointly by the milk department and the health authorities, and extensive tests are taken regularly to guard against possible infection. Negotiations have not reached that stage in Auckland where the vendors will commit themselves to an opinion, for, as the move has been made primarily by the farmers, the onus is considered to be on them to advance a workable scheme. This is in the process of formation, and quiet progress is being made toward public education to the desirability of absolutely safe milk. Small vendors oppose the scheme. Chilling plants on the farm are considered by some to be the ultimate solution of the clean-milk problem, but careful and efficient handling in pasteurisation and distribution is suggested as the initial factor in the accomplishment of this object.