[From the " New Zealand Farmer."] BUTTER AND CHEESE FOR ENG LISH MARKETS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 307, 13 October 1888, Page 5

[From the " New Zealand Farmer."] BUTTER AND CHEESE FOR ENG LISH MARKETS.

A representative of the JVeto Zealand Times has had an interview with MiMeadows who has come to this colony with the object of making arrangements for obtaining a regular supply of butter and cheese from New Zealand for the London market. We quote as follows from the report of the nterview :—: — Mr E. Meadows is the representative of the well-known lirni of H. Trongrouse and Co., provision agents, of London. MiMeadows, who has had over thirty-five years' experience in the provision trade, is an expert whose knowledge is of the greatest value to our cheese and buttermakers. For many years past ho has been a personal buyer of provisions in the producing dis mots of the United States and Canada. He has visited nearly all the celebrated dairy factories in those countries, and may there" fore be acknowledged to be an expert of no mean calibre. His visit to New Zealand on behalf of his firm is to make arrangements for buying either direct or with the view of receiving In London consignments of butter and cheese, and for that purpose he will vieit the piinci^al producing d-stiicrs of the colony. Tie will be pleased to confer with any one specially interesred in the matter, and is prepared, if required, to give address 5 s :n various centres upon the exact requirements of the English market foi butter and cheese. In the c mrse ot a long iuterview, Mr Meadows ridiculed the idea of one dairy expert travelling the country to instruct dairy farmers. What is wanted is several expert men who thoroughly understand the actual requirements of the English market at the present time, and would be able to give correct information about weight, Hacking, colour, flavour, etc., of both butter and cheese. Up to the present time he considers the people of New Zealand have been asleep to the provision trade They do not, he said, know what an important trade they are neglecting, or to what extent it can be developed into. " yes,v es, sir," said Mr Meadows, " your peoplo here have a grand industry before them, and it wi 1 be their own fault if they cannot make it pay handsomely. Why, as a proof of what you can do I am here to-day. We in London know what you can produce, and I am come to give on some hints a* to what is required. Take butter, for instance. I saw a sample lot of New Zealand butter in London just before I left. I gave 117s per cwt for it, and I must say it was the finest butter I evei tasted. Ifc was equal to any ever turned out in D./set- | shire or anywhere else. It was a p. oof ! you can make superb butter. bur y<*u have one grievous fault. Your bactci is not uniform, either in flavour, coiom, or package. Your makers have net pnned j at that cfcige o f knowledge of zi\<* Home markets to know the importance of uhoroujrh unifoimity. For example, suppose want to buy I(XD kegs. It would not pay me to waste my time in sampling every keg. I want to take, say, 1U per cent, of the number. a?id reiy upon having: -ill the >e ? t equal, -'.rain, I v> ant all the kee,> of tlie j same weight, something like the Danish, I say 161b taie. You &cc it is an important j item to us to have the same net weicrht and tare in each keg. We can buy much easier. If I buy 500 ke«> Danish butter I cau immediately re'l exactly the net weight of the butter I ha\e to pay for. At the same ume I mu<t say that owinjr to bad package and a want of common sense in mixing inferior butter with some medium to crood, 1 saw one lot of 25J kegs at 36.-.. 1 will tell you what your people aie doing by such butter as that. Well, the;-e 250 kt^s were sold for export to JDenmaik, where i the keen Danes manipulated it and re- J turned it to London clean and sweet as prime Danish butter, where it sold at a good figure. Of course, the Dane? won't object to jour makeis inferior butter to London — they reap the advantage of it. Now, that is what your New Zealand makers sbonld do for themselves. Thou with the ke^> fc^nt fi -in tlm colony, they we not satisfactory. You should take a lesson from the Canadian butter makers. They get kegs made in .'factories all of ore size, pattern, and weight, and material. The best shadedkegs for the English market are those wider at the top than they are at the bottom. Then the retalier can slip the butter easily out of the keg on to his marble stand, and cut it up without waste; but in your present style of New j Zealand kegs the amount of waste is a serious drawback to the retailer, and, of course, the prices obtained suffer in con- j sequence. "With regard to cheese, I am convinced from what colonial cheese I have tasted that you have a big future before you in that industry. 1 will read you an extract from a letter I received to-day from the largest cheese buyers in the city of Montreal, in Canada. The writer says — "Do the people of New Zealand know what a big trade they may have in their fingers, which, in time, looks to us as if it could be made to equal the trade of America and Canada.' " Mr Meadows went on to say, " I have tasted New Zealand cheese in London really superb. I bought some at 56s of remarkably good quality. I may say that in England there is an unlimited market for fine New Zealand cheese at fair remuner- ' ative rates. But your makers appear to work in the dark ; they have not studied the wants of the English market, either as regaids weight, colour, or size. The cheese now vyantedjit Home should be 601b i in weight. It should be as fat as ifc i 3 possible to make it. It should be made white, light straw colour or darker, just as the different markets require. But^to send small, miserable-sized cheese is a great mistake. A 601b cheese matures much better and cuts oub to greater advantage to the retailer. The cheese does well packed in long boxes, with a board between each cheebe, and the sides of the box open sufficiently to let the air circulate freely all round each cheese. It is a great mistake for your factories to store the cheese too long in this colony. My experience teaches me thai cheese is best shipped to London when it has reached 21 days old. It will mature enough on the voyage, and besides, it is turned into money all the sooner. " With regard to the shipment of butter, it should be sent in a cool chamber, the temperature nob to exceed 40deg. ; and cheese will do well in the same tempeiature. The articles which you published in the New Zealand Mail in December and January last on ' Dairy products, and how to make them pay,' gave a capital idea to your butter and cheese - makers how to approach the London market, and I must confebS that I am greatly surprised that your makers have not taken advantage of information you gave them. Mj>

opinion is that you are half asleop in this country over dairy produce, and unless >ou waken up pretty soon you will have someone else taking fcho trade away from ;>ou."