SECTIONS - BRIEF REPORT MILK RECEPTION AND LOSSES- METERS Y. WEIGHBRIDGES The above title was the subject for the London, South and Eastern Section evening meeting held on 1st November, 1977 at the New Ambassadors Hotel. The high level of interest shown by the audience of 65 in the three excellent short papers and the discussion which followed seemed to warrant a summary for publication.

The first paper was given by Mr. N. MacFarlane, Movements Manager for the Milk Marketing Board. He explained how and why the Board had set out to accommodate the buyer’s wish to use meters or weighbridges to check the quantity of milk received. The search for pro- cedures for the approval of such equipment had led to extended discussions with the Dairy Trade Federation but since 1st January, 1977 the pro- cedures* have been documented and agreed. This gives the buyer the opportunity to get a measuring system approved and to present the Board with a monthly statement of deficient or excess de- liveries. There are 270 buyers who could install intake measuring equipment but only 19 have obtained approval and all of these are for weigh- bridges; many more have meters or weighbridges but for various reasons approval has not been sought.

The second speaker, Mr. C. Nicholson of Northern Dairies, gave his experiences with meters. His company, in collaboration with the NIRD, had pioneered the use of reference vessels to achieve accurate intake measurement and he gave examples of how losses had been reduced when meters were installed: from an isolated case of a vat having a calibration chart belonging to a different farm to the general effect on tanker drivers who seem to be able to ‘tune’ their dip- stick readings to give a total which agrees with the meter at the dock. When Northern Dairies started installing intake meters there was a con- siderable price advantage over weighbridges which had now disappeared: this comment re- lated to the imported positive-displacement type of meter but is not true of some UK manu- factured systems which are equally suitable. Mr. Nicholson then gave some of the pros and cons of the two basic types of meter. He considered positive displacement meters to be the most accurate and to have the advantage of being

+(a) JC403 M M B / D T F Code of Practice. for the approval of static meter installatlons and their subsequent use for the check measurement of ex-farm bulk milk.

(b) JC404 MMB/DTF Code of Practice for the approval of weighbridges and their subsequent use for the check measurement of ex-farm bulk milk.

purely mechanical, but against this they are bulky and vulnerable to damage and have become very expensive. Turbine meters are subject to drift and require a power supply but give no cleaning problems and are generally more robust.

Mr. D. Darlington of the Royal Arsenal Co- operative Society, then spoke of his company’s experiences with weighbridges. He considered that they had special reason for needing intake measurement since most of their milk came in re- load tankers (20,000 1) which are filled with the milk from about 2+ farm collection vehicles (9,000 1). Thus as buyers they have no control over or contact with the drivers who measured or estimated the quantity of milk they received. At the time that they decided to deal with the problem, the weighbridge was the only method of measurement they could have official approval for and this dictated their choice. Their level of loss recovery from the Board is between 0.3 and 0.4 per cent, which is the error on the consigned quantity above the tolerance of 0.2 per cent.

Both the President and Vice-president of the Society were in the audience and the latter, Mr. Ian McAlpine, made an interesting contribution to the discussion by explaining a little of the milk measurement procedures in Scotland.

The discussion was opened by Mr. MacFarlane. He repeated the point that although the other speakers implied that shortages were a very serious problem only 19 buyers had obtained ap- proval for intake measuring systems. He referred to one anomaly with a dairy making considerable shortage claims but after close investigation it was shown they were bottling more than they were buying. On the question of farm dipsticks he agreed there are shortcomings and pointed out that this was one reason for the introduction of turbine meters on farm collection tankers. The re-load shortages he considered to be a problem of management rather than measurement, but in the absence of measurement the problem is a very real one. The tanker-mounted meters will assist with this problem but in the light of Mr. Nichol- son’s remarks on turbine meters being unreliable it was asked whether a genuine improvement was going to be achieved. The answer to this apparent anomaly is simple; it was the unreliability of com- mercially available meters which led to identifica- tion of the faults and design of the meter now adopted by the Board; it has taken the last three years to make it commercially viable and to prove its accuracy and reliability. Following a logical theme Mr. Thomas of South Suburban Co-op

106 Journal of the Socieiy of Dairy Technology. Vol. 31, N o . 2, April, 1978

made the valid point that if the Board are to meter the milk at the farm and again on discharge at the creamery, then further measurement by the buyer would seem to be a waste of money! There may be many buyers who will wait to review their losses when the new tanker meters are in use. The question of the bias on intake measurement, which gives the Board an 0.2 per cent addition on the quantity sold compared with the quantity purchased at the farm, was raised. Mr. MacFarlane explained that this was neces- sary to preserve the sfatus quo since the estab- lished point of measurement is at the farm vat and an estimated 0.2 per cent is lost on transfers (Cheeseman, 1972).

Further points were made on the value of a weighbridge to a processing dairy; raw milk, products and other purchased commodities can all be checked. Mr. Wilton of Express Dairies

Ltd. spoke of the reduction in wastage achieved by his company and referred to a weighbridge reading to 10 kg in 50,000 kg, which corresponds to k0.02 per cent. This brought a strong reaction from other members of the audience and it was conceded that while the weight may be known to high accuracy, the gallonage was not known to better than 0.2 per cent unless density measure- ments much more accurate than that were made on each individual load of milk.

If a single conclusion can be drawn from the meeting it should be the one which was generally agreed; this was that when intake measurement is introduced wastage and losses are reduced.

T. Cheeseman, NIRD

REFERENCE Cheeseman, T. (1972) Journal of the Society of Dairy

Technology, 25, 82.

M I S S H. R. C H A P M A N

Helen Chapman retired from her post as Head of the Experimental Dairy at the National Institute for Research in Dairying at the end of March, after 27 years at Shinfield. This is noteworthy in itself, but her service to the dairy industry goes far beyond that simple statement.

She obtained the NDD and her college diploma (with honours) at the Lancashire College of Agri- culture, and immediately entered the world of dairy training and education in the Midlands and South West. After a period during the war as an advisory milk officer in Leicestershire, she became Head of the Dairy Department and lecturer in Dairy Bacteriology at Seale Hayne Agricultural College, in Devon. After seven years, in 1950, she moved to the NIRD to re-establish the Experi- mental Dairy. The functions of the Experimental Dairy in supporting the Institute’s research pro- gramme had lapsed during the war, and it be- came her task to reassemble staff and equipment, and to lead the dairy into its new duties within an expanding Shinfield.

Her success is well known, and there can be few people in the industry to whom she is not known, either personally or by repute. Much of the practical work on dairying processing at Shinfield has depended on the collaboration of the Experi- mental Dairy, and Helen Chapman’s own contribution, particularly into cheesemaking problems, is recorded in more than 50 papers. These include the first description of the cheddar- ing tower, with R. T. Budd, in our Journal in

1960. I t is regrettable that this development was only accepted in this country after it had been taken up abroad and re-introduced in imported equipment.

Helen Chapman has been an active member of many scientific and technical societies, such as the Society for Applied Bacteriology, and the Agricultural Education Association, of which she was Dairy Section Secretary for many years. She has been a member of our Society since 1943: she was a Council member from 1965-68, has served on the Research and Education Committee since 1967, and is at present Chairman of the Reading and Southern Counties Branch.

She has been in demand as a judge of dairy produce at the Dairy Show and at important regional agricultural shows, and as an examiner on behalf of the Royal Agricultural Society, the City and Guilds Institute, the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, and various colleges.

It seems unlikely that she will break her links with the dairy industry as a result of her official retirement, so that we shall have the benefit of her knowledge and experience in many wavs for, we hope, a long time to come. Her many friends in the Society, and in the industry at large, will wish her a long, active and happy retirement. It is entirely appropriate that last year she should have received the Silver Jubilee Medal, which can stand as a recognition of long and valued service to the dairy industry, to education and to research. H.B.

Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, Vol. 31. No. 2 , Apr i l , 1978 107