STORAGE AND HANDLING OF CHEESE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1918, Page 5

STORAGE AND HANDLING OF CHEESE.

COMPANIES RESIST IMPROVED METHODS. (Our Special Correspondent.) Wellington, March 18. The chairman of ilie Wellinaton Harbor Board (Mr. C. K. Daniel])"stated at to day's meeting that the new cheese store erected by the Board last year was at present full. Even the nileyways between the stacks had been used for storage and tho Board's stores contulnei at the present time 108,000 crak's of cheese. Experts had certified to the excellent care taken of this produce. Cheese had lain in the stores month after month without suffering deterioration and the officer-; of the .'Vgf/eultijral Department had expressed admiration oE the work done by the menuers of the Board's staff.

Mr. Daniell stated that he had tried lo improve the methods of handling the cheese. An electric tractor had been provided to draw trucks each carrying twelve crates of cheese, and he had honed that the Board would have the ••o operation of the shipping companies in the use of this tractor. But the companies had resisted improved methods. They had an agreement that permitted the use of slings holding sixteen crates of , cheese, and they insisted on using the slings instead of the trays provided by the Board for use in conjunction with the trucks. The result was that valuable produce was damaged. 'That is human perversity which I cannot understand," said Mr. Daniell. "I shall keep on worrying the companies until they do better. I feel that wo should do something to prevent produce being knocked about unnecessarily. Every time a crate of cheese is handled roughly its market value is reduced. Their is a totally unnecessary destruction of'valuable produce through the insistence of the shipping companies upon the use of the' slings instead of the trays."