THE CHEESE AND BUTTER INDUSTRIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 49, 10 May 1884, Page 7

THE CHEESE AND BUTTER INDUSTRIES.

Mr Bowkon, Inspector of Cheese Factories, placed on view at the Chamber o! Commerce, Auckland, on Tuesday lust, samples of eheeae t'rotn the following places : Te A .vatnuiu Pateraugi, Hamilton, Uukuuiu, Pukekohe, Turanga, and a sample from a private dairy iv the Buy of Plenty. lv the afternoon, at three o'clock, a number of gentlemen, after tasting tin cheeses and being thoroughly satisfied with them, asked Mr Bowron to favour them with Ids views on tue cheese and butter industries. -On the niotiou of Mill. Whitaker, ~£r J. C. Filth was voted to the chair. Mr Firth, in introducing the subject, said : It may not be generally kn ,wu that in this colony there are already as many as 21 factoiies for the manufacture of, cheese, 16' in the North Lsian- 1 , and five in the South. So far as I can learn, the verdict is unanimous in favour of the quality of the various cueeses that have been submitted by Air Bowruii from tue Waikato factories.. You have had an opportunity of tasting tne&e cheeses, and so far as I can lenrn the verdict upon 'the whole of them will be tiiat the samples are very satisfactory. There is one difficulty in the way of the cheese industry, which is really a very serious and important one, and that is, that the cheese companies hays not as yet. found out the best way of getting rid of the cheese, which they now find they can make. We all know that whenever an article is sent from a new district to a market like That of London, itn introduction is surrounded with a great deal of difficulty. It is a new article. Nobody knows anything about it. People are prejudiced in favour of the article they have been accustomed to use for a long period. They naturally look with disfavour, with suspicion perh.vps,, upon any new article which is intended to supplant or take its place alongside the old one. These, however, are but .atural difficulties, which time and a good arrangement for the disposal of the cheese for bringing it under the notice of the consuming public in the London market, will correct. You will be interested to learn the high quality of the milk in the "Waikato district. I understand that •whilst in England 11 per cent of cream is a very fair average in milk ; that at the Hamilton Cheese Factory the percentage averaged, from 13 to 21,- and that, when the milk -was amalgamated, that the percentage was not unfrequently as much in some cases as 20 per cent of <jream, and that the cheese now on the table was made from one t of - the . day's milk, in which the percentage of cream, was- 20. I must confess that I never lieard of such a heavy percentage, showing that the quality of the Waikato lands must be. .extraordinary for its oheesemaking properties. Mr Bowron said : At first when I came to New Zealand my impression \a as that this was a good colony for making dairy produce. Nor did I rest till the factory at Ash burton was started. Now, cheese from that factory has gone to London under very unfavourable circumstances, for it ought to have been delivered iv London at the age of six months. It was twelve months old when it arrived, and it reached London in November last, the worst month of the year for selling cheese. That cheese sold from 56s up to 70s per cwt. That was ihe price they realised on a consignment of about 50 tons. This year cheese has gone from that factory, and has been sold. From a letter vvuicii I have received as to the first two tons, it appears that the cheese was only ten weeks old when it was put into a freezing chamber, and when the cheese came out in London they were lik lumps of ics ; they were sold at 52s Gd. Thirty tons have gone, and I will venture to vay that it will not realise less than 745. ~ Row, as to the cheese before yon : A gr< j nt deal depends upon the size of the cheese. The .*niall lump of che«se there, about 2Olbp, would be veiy difficult to sell in London. When made into quantities of 80lbs it -will fetch £10 a ion more than the small creases wilt. Tl.en we come to tho manufacture : One of the cheeses before you is manufactured on tiie American principle. That cheese wan made from milk showing 20 per cent of cream, ' which' is unparalleled in the history of all dailies that ever I have known. Another of the cheeses before yon is manu;,facfcured on the Cheddar principle*— -^purely Cheddar. There is no cheese <.',' that will sell in . London at so high a |y,ptfce._as the Cheddar cheese. The other grfeUhrsH before you are very goo 1 in.leed. parl ly on the Amerion the (Jheddai principle. fac'uV/ies -will *■' lie : iu, iteration, |l^n^x,^y|iir,f AJi'J .each; factory Vil} be- able

colony. ' wherever; l .go at\tne pre§em time - the; farmers \say tbnfc corn will" tidt pay, , and - beef will' not pay ;- and* Jtqeir last hope, seems to be the dairy; they are going to try inland S-in^o^ej; that it might prove- a success yinr will see as. I do the impoitance of 'making the ji^lit - article to iueet the demand of the London market. I have no hesitation \n stating that my opinion is' that the nearest way to success is as quickly as possible to get into the way of. man uIVturmg the Cheddar^ an J the double Gloucester cheese. How is this to be done ? My opinion upon that point i.this, that there should be one factory manufacturing upon that principle ; that all the young men and women who go to manufacture the other' ."cheese should pass through that factory ami take a certifies te.t tat they are competent persons, foi\ depend upon it where we tail in making cheese is in the incoinpetency of the persons who have made it. Nothing is more -difficult that the manufacture of .choose. Prople looking on think it is a very simple thing, and ran away with the idea that they can make cheese. But there are so many contingencies connected with it — changes ol' the atmosphere, change of the season. These mutters must; he noted, or u person will never make a finished cheese from the beginning to the end of the season. Tueii comes the butter question. In some districts it is impossible to get a cheese fueco.y ; the people cannot supply the milk. Then, I say,,go 10 tue butier. You can put a butter factory up for one-third of the money required for a cneese factory ; and anotuer yi'eat advantage in the butter is tnis, that tue uay it is indue it is ready tor the market, «uul tue sooner it is in the market tne belter. lam fully convinced that when a few butter factories only get fairly siarted they will find it a very great success, lue butter of thi? colony, I am prepared to say, from what I have seen at tue vmious shows, will equal any butter ever made in England, tiiuQgu we nu\e a great veal that really is not good. Tue reason is that the cream is spoiled beioie it is made iuto butter ; but when ttie centrifugal machine comes to be in full operation you will have better butter made, and taere will never be reason to coinplaiu of tlie butter. The statastics last, year showed that England had 3,600,000 cows. The uiilk from the cows, valued at 6d, realised £40,500,000. That ' was the value of the milk produced in England. New Zealand .had a territory equally as large «s England, the milk was much richer than tiiat of England, and he thought if" the industry was fairly started the sale of cheese, butter, and Licoa would bring millions to tiie colony. In « ne part ,of fc^e colony now they were not realising more than 4|d for butter. He was informed that they had to take it to the stores, and take it out in sugar and tea. At his request one of these farmers sent Home a few firkins, and they realised 100s per cwt, that is, lOfd per lb. It was not really good butter, but was what v he considered very fair. It had a great deal of water in it. A butter factory; would be started, next week, and he would soon know what the butter factories would do.' He could not tell just yet what the profit of the cheese factories would be; but there was one factor^ "Which" seemed very sanguine of being able to pay_B per. cent dividend this year. Mr Firth ( .said one difficulty in the way of exporting cheese at present arose from the heavy charges, especially iv the matter of freight, to which it was subject. Cheese in order to be placed properly on tbe-London market ought to be put into a cool chamber on board tne steamers, not exceeding nor much lower than 55 degrees. That, of course, require J a certain expense on the part of tue steam companies. He understood that they requiied Id per lb, or a little over £\) per ton, tor tne transmission to London of cneese in this coordiamher. He ielt timttuat would be a prohibitive pace, aud if tiie sieam companies wished reauy to deveiope this trade, and provide treigijts for tneiii&elves, aud assist iv kukeng the people of this country anfrioiuuuy vveaituy to he able to purchase imports, and so us to increase the trade to and iiom Dins colony, which these steamers mignt expect to do, he thought taey would have w reduce these rates ve.y considerably. If .^1 per lb were cti.u^ed ior transmission in the cool chamber, it would amount to £4 10s per ton, and tho cheese factories could afford to pay that. He would strongly put it before the directors of the New Zealand Shipping Company, and Simw, Snvill, and Co., whether it would not be a much better policy for them to announce at once that they were prepared to take cheese in considerable quantities in cooling eh Ambers lit per lb. Ivlr Bowron said : If the eheosc on the table were sold in London now-, it' cheese of tue quality of the must interior salnjjJj were &oid — it would letch 7£d~per lb. April, May, and June were the best months to sell cheese in tho London uiarlfet. The, -heaviest^ quantities- exported by New Zealand would go into the uiaiVi tin tho&ff; uiqutns. Engiisji new ichee&'e 'did* not reach the mur&et till August. The American choose began to pour iv in, June. JJefore. tlmt" there, werei three moujkus^ut'ing which /New Zealand would have the, market to her-, self, )a,nd_that/was-a; veiy ,-gre>t .advantage." — Htrald •/' '- " . j--. .' - » /-V- - %? v

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