“MUST BE IMPROVED”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1020, 10 July 1930, Page 10

“MUST BE IMPROVED”

NEW ZEALAND GUARDING CHEESE QUALITY

FACTORY MANAGER’S VIEW

With the attention of New Zealand farmers drawn abruptly to the need for maintaining the quality of cheese export*, by the complaints in England, a considerable improvement may be expected in this year’s exports.

English importers have declared that New Zealand is sending large consignments of poor quality cheese on the markets, much of which is considered not to be wholly suitable from the point of view of the consumers in the United Kingdom. In an interview this morning, Mr. P. C. H. Petersen, Dominion president of the New Zealand Dairy Factory Managers’ Association, who presided at the opening of the conference of the Auckland provincial branch, said he believed that New Zealand farmers were now fully alive to the necessity of placing quality foremost in the manufacture of cheese.

“There have been many concerning the ‘openness’ of New Zealand cheese,” Mr. Petersen said, ,7 but, this year, we feel that the farmers, with the co-operation of the factories, will do much to raise the standard of cheese. There should be an improvement this year. In the past there has been apparent a desire to increase the yield, but it is now being understood that quaiity must be preserved as well. “It is highly important that New Zealand should study quality if it wants to protect its market. New Zealand is getting a bad name in some quarters. OUTPUT RISING “Our butter standard has been extremely steady. It is essential that we place the cheese market in the same position. Both butter and cheese outputs are rising. “Even if the complaints in England were not justified, it is necessary for the New Zealand producer to manufacture what the consumer wants. Canada is New Zealand’s biggest competitor on the cheese market, and, in the past few months, Canadian cheese has brought much prices than New Zealand. That may not be due altogether to better quality; there may have been a shortage of Canadian stocks.”

Mr. Petersen mentioned that the New Zealand conference at Palmerston North passed a resolution favouring differential. payment for finest cheese. The Dairy Produce Control Board had discussed the same question, recommending each grading district to set up a voluntary pool at each grading port. Mr. Petersen thought the proposal satisfactory. In Taranaki, the producers seemed to be in favour of voluntary pools at the grading ports, and it was probable that these would be formed. The recommendation made from Palmerston North was for the payment of a premium on finest cheese on grade points at the rate of 5d a crate for each half-point aY>ove 90.