To her extreme discomfort, “loss and inconvenience” she was totally drenched in milk and had to retrace her steps to purchase more. Imagine the scolding she received on returning home, clothing wet, smelling of milk and with no change to hand over.
In October 1928, while still delivering vat milk, the Waitangi Dairy advertised “fresh milk morning and afternoon” and encouraged the reader to imagine the novelty of receiving an afternoon milk delivery to ensure “a refreshing drink at teatime”.
They promoted the notion that having milk delivered twice a day provided economic sense as it was “cheaper and better than buying an ice chest”.
When bottled milk was first introduced in the 1920s, a reporter wrote a treatise promoting its benefits. He disparagingly described milk delivered in vats as “somewhat problematic” compared to bottled milk due to the risk of contamination.
In summer, motor vehicles kicking up dust from the “filth-laden” roads, or a “nor’wester or southerly buster in full swing” could easily contaminate vat milk. Further, when the milkman handled customers milk cans, some of which were “clean, some otherwise”, there was the risk of spreading “all kinds of sickness and disease”, particularly typhoid.
While, in winter, when transferring milk from the vat to the customers can, there were “unavoidable drippings from hat and sleeves” to contend with.
On August 1, 1932, “Jackaroo” wrote an article for the local newspaper on Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawke’s Bay’s most “up-to-date hygienic dairy property that he had yet visited” - the Waitangi Dairy’s “new establishment at Pakowhai” operated by Orbell Bros.
Pakowhāi’s Waitangi Dairy specialised in bottled milk supply and claimed that, through new mechanisation, the “danger of contamination from handling” would be eliminated.
Jackaroo’s first impression was to applaud the shed’s cleanliness and the “spotless overalls” of the men who handled “the five-cow electrically operated plant”.
The Waitangi Dairy Company was situated on 109 acres (44 hectares) at Pakowhāi and ran a herd of approximately 100 cows, mainly Jersey-Shorthorn cross and a few Friesians.
Both the cow yard and bails were made of concrete, with the yards “coloured and attractively finished with the use of red oxide”. The interior of the cowshed was “match-lined” and all the “woodwork enamelled” so it could be scrubbed down daily.
New innovations were evident – each cow when entering the holding yard, passed through a water race deep enough to remove any loose mud clinging to the udder or legs. This measure was to prevent “unnecessary mud and dirt” being brought into the milking yard.
Still under construction was the concrete race which would run along the front of the bails, so that when released, cows would walk out onto clean concrete and then down the race into an open paddock.
This, Jackaroo stated, would be a vast improvement on the muddy conditions currently evident in most cow yards. Drainage was also a prerequisite, implemented to ensure all waste material was “carried well away from the cowshed”.
The innovative new milking plant was washed and steam-sterilised after each milking. The plant was a “bucket machine” and when full, each bucket was inspected before the contents were poured into the vat.
The milk was then lifted by a “vacuum process” to an “expansion cooler” where the temperature of the milk was quickly lowered to approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit “to destroy any risk of infection” after which it was run through filters straight into the bottling machine.
This machine consisted of a “tank, with three valves fitted to its base” which would open when a bottle was pushed on to a valve’s base and then close once released. Alongside was another automatic machine, which stamped the cardboard stoppers on, to seal the bottle. This “wonderful piece of plant” could produce 500 bottles of milk an hour.
When returned the bottles were washed in “hot water and a caustic solution” and then “steam sterilised”. Jackaroo concluded that sediment tests taken by the Department of Agriculture at Waitangi Dairy provided “striking evidence” that “cleanliness pays” and that the Orbell Bros were “to be congratulated upon their” model dairy. No longer was there any danger that milk would be tainted or contaminated with dirt or disease, thanks to the newly invented sealed glass milk bottle.
We are fortunate to have a bottle from the Waitangi Dairy in the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust collection. A simple object with a rich Te Matau-a-Māui history, closely associated with agriculture, employment, local enterprise and community.
