A BUTTER FAULT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 14, 14 December 1932, Page 8

A BUTTER FAULT

OVERCOME BY RESEARCH. DIFFICULT SPREADING. (By Telegraph —Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 14. New Zealand butter has frequently been contrasted unfavourably to Danish on account of its lack of spreadability. This may seem a trifling point to New Zealanders accustomed to lavish supplies of firstclass butter, and oven in difficult times a fair margin of purchasing power which enables them to ignore line economy in the use of butter. However, large quantities of New Zealand butter must be used in English homes where the most rigid economy is bound to bo practised, and there it is that butter cannot be used if it will not spread easily, and “go a long way.” Grocers are accustomed to sell very small quantities to certain classes of customers, and the restaurants portion out butter at a penny for a pat only the size of half a crown. When temperatures become low in England, it has been noticeable that the demand for New Zealand butter has dropped lieavilv. Lack of easy spreading capacity largely. explains the change, and the problem has received attention from the officers of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, who have met with great success. It has been found by a number of experiments that it is quite possible to produce a butter in the Dominion which lias the softness of Danish and capable of being spread just as easily. The stiff texture of Dominion butter was found to bo due to a certain method of quick cooling of cream. This can be avoided without heavy expense to the dairy factories, and the new system will shortly bo explained to them. The matter has, however, to be treated with caution, because too soft a butter will not be favoured during the English summer, though at the present moment our “hard” butter is not in demand, except for blending with other qualities which make it suitable for use during the low temperature periods.