RENNET

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 6

RENNET

SAVING THE FARMERS’ MONEY ASTOUNDING FIGURES A practical example of just what a Mew Zealand manufacturing industry can do for the farmers of this country is illustrated by statistics recently issued by the Mew Zealand Cooperative Rennet Co., Ltd., of Kltham. Rennet, which is a by-product of the veal and calfskin industry, is an essential for our cheesemakers, and until the wartime it was all imported trom the Continent. Even in 1919 the Customs Department statistics show the value of oversea rennet imported as .£93,000, all of which’ money, of course, was completely lost to this country. Quite another story is presented by toe Mew Zealand rennet company lust referred to. In a bulletin issued ! last month, there is published some .’acts of tremendous interest to both i town and country. Retained Estimated in OverSales. N.Z. seas. M.Z. Cheese £ £ £ . T -Rennet ... .. XI, BCO 11,570 230 Cheese Colour . . . . 1,000 970* 30 itenco for Junket 1,000 950 50 Anorol Ink .. .. 4»0 330 70 £14,200 £13,820 £3B<T ♦Cheese colour amount included value or annatto seed frrown in New Zealand Island dependencies. . Only 2 per cent, of the value of their

' cheese rennet, or 25 per cent, of the : total receipts, is spent overseas, indudi ing amounts spent by New Zealand ! manufacturers supplying our labels, i tins, etc.

j Nearly £14.000 is retained in New I Zealand, and is paid to— Farmers and meat companies supplying veils. Our employees for wages. Railways for freight. New Zealand manufacturers of kegs (from New Zealand timber), wooden boxes, tins, drums, labels, bottles, card boxes, etc. Yet in 1919 over £93,000 was sent overseas for rennet. This high annual i charge has been reduced, largely be- ! cause of New Zealand competition, j and the total cost to cheese companies is now only about £16,000! That | £93.000 was permanently lost tD the Dominion. Compare this with £350 per annum that would be spent out of the Dominion if the whole of the cheese and household rennet required was manufactured in our own country. ! These figures are a striking confirmation of the article published in the columns of The Sun last July, where was stated that before the war the price for imported rennet was £35 a keg, r.s against a price of about £3 13s I a keg today.