Margarine

With A J

Suva, Sep. 30.

PRESUMABLY there are she economists in this sad world; but it always seems to me that the crazy shortages of this and that are usually caused by the inter ference and brain-storms of the male of the species.

I felt this more than ever to-day as I examined the Carpenter oil and margarine factory in Suva; saw jopra being fed in one end and margarine coming out the other, md reflected that in the two weeks lefore I left Sydney I could buy mly one-quarter pound of butter— md no margarine.

I thought even less highly of the et-up when I learned that the Australian margarine that one can lot buy in Australia is also avail able at some establishments in >uva. It may make economics. It loesn’t make sense, l/JAKING margarine from copra .?! is comparatively easy. You grind it and toast it and queeze the oil out of it; then you liter it and neutralise it, hydro enise it, deodorise it, put in colour, lavour, a few odd vitamins, salt — nd there you are—so like butter nyone might be fooled.

The only catch is that between he crude lumps of copra and the mished, wrapped pat of margarine, here is, I should judge, about half million pounds’ worth of mach lery and equipment.

If you have built so little as a hicken coop in the past ten years, ben you would be staggered, as I r as, at the amount that has been one in this Suva oil-mill. I don’t now how long it took; but there r as nothing there six years ago r hen I last visited Suva.

The initial difficulty must have een the provision of power. Most Duntries seem now to have per- Jcted methods of restricting the se of electricity; in Sydney they ave their celebrated blackouts; in Z there is a ration.

Suva solved its difficulty by not mnecting any more consumers to le supply.

The oil mill and margarine ictory, therefore, provide all their iyn requirements in this direction, ith oil fuel and two generators lat look large enough to supply a nail town. Each generator can reduce 500 kilowatts; but only one in use at a time. The mill works ' hours a day, seven days a week ad there are two of everything so lat the process never stops.

The basic operation is the pro nction of crude coconut oil—and it

Suva Oil Mill.

—Photo by Fiji Public Relations Office.

is with this that the factory is mostly concerned. The manufac ture of margarine and cooking oils is regarded as of secondary im portance. A by-product of the oil manufacture is coconut meal, which is shipped to New Zealand and the UK for use in stock and poultry food.

FIRST stage between crude oil and margafine is neutralisation of the acid content; next is the addition of hydrogen, which supplies the hardening agent, making it a fat rather than an oil (they manu facture their own hydrogen) ; then deodorisation by adding chemicals, and heating in a vacuum. The whole thing takes place in a cham ber that looks like a cross between a dairy and laboratory, and nowhere during the manufacture is the pro duct handled by the operators.

As well as margarine, the com pany makes a pure cooking oil, a mustard oil much favoured by the local Indians for curries, etc., and a ghee-flavoured oil which is also a growing favourite with the Indian population.

While I was there they were put ting out a special brew of vita minised oil at the request of the South Pacific Commission for some atoll folk in the Line Islands.

Also, samewhere around the neutralising phase, liquid soap is made. This is supplied to local institutions, but is not sold com mercially at present.

The margarine sells locally at 1/11 per pound. (Butter is 3/4.) It is exceedingly popular with local housewives and has a growing ex port market in Samoa, Tonga and New Caledonia.

It would be welcome in Australia —but until such time as Australians are at starvation point there is about as much chance of the Com monwealth abandoning the White Australia policy as there is of letting Fiji margarine through the pro tective barrier Australian farmers and politicians have built up.

TWO other points of interest; One they spell their mar garine with a J instead of a G, allegedly because margarine in one of the local languages means some thing nasty.

Two—the queer things that find their way in from the plantations with the copra. In a special cham ber of horrors reserved for these mementoes which have been plucked out of the crushing machinery are large stones, a pipe (tobacco, for the use of), a huge piece of iron, rusty hinges, an iron ball, and a miscel laneous collection of bolts, nuts,,

screws, nails, and wire.-

JT.

Mr. D. Claasen has been appointed!

Chief of Police, Niue Is. He suc ceeds Mr. J. O’Rourke, who has returned to New Zealand.