Kinder positions open

In 1879 about 60 gallons of milk was railed to Melbourne on the 7am train from Drouin. This was hardly a satisfactory system. The milk took three hours to reach Melbourne, and there were no trains on a Sunday.

Like their brethren in the hills further south the farmers in the Drouin and Warragul areas who turned to dairy farming (and there were many who did not, at first) used their milk to make cheese and butter, which could be kept longer.

The coming of the De Laval separator made it possible to recover about 20% more cream from the milk – with a 20% increase in farm income. The first in the Drouin area was at Buln Buln in 1884, on the farm of A.W. Harvies.

The first butter factory in the area began at Bull Swamp in 1888, run by E.C. and W.C. Parkes and William Watt. This small operation was moved into Warragul and early in the new century it was taken over by Holdenson and Nielson. They made ‘Rose Creamery’ butter, sold worldwide as soon as refrigerated shipping became available.

The pattern throughout Gippsland had been for small farmers to separate their cream from the milk by letting it stand until the cream rose and could be skimmed off.

This meant the establishment of many small creameries in rural areas but this was not to last. The development of separation and cooling techniques, government bonusses for milk producers and improved transport led to larger, more centralised facilities, with greater efficiency and cleanliness.

The Fresh Food and Frozen Storage Company, in 1891, a Melbourne firm, offered to build a creamery in Drouin holding 40 per cent of the shares for itself and distributing the rest to local farmers in a co-operative model. It was the company’s intention that its shares would later be bought by the farmers. The csompany wanted to set up creameries to guarantee its own supplies but it did not really want to own or run them.

There was already a creamery at Warragul. One was set up at Neerim and another was on the Jindivick Road near the Tarago River. The Neerim plant closed down in 1894, having run for just three years. The Tarago River plant was taken over by Holdenson and Nielson. Just consider for a moment the distances between these and the issues of getting whole milk from the farms to them, especially in winter.

The Drouin creamery began in 1891 but a meeting I n 1895 decided to wind it up.

By 1910 the Drouin Co-operative Butter Factory was in full production at the corner of South Road and Montague Avenue. Every two pounds of c ream produced one pound of butter. With large numbers of farmers bringing their cream to the factory each morning, and with butter fetching 122 pounds a ton in London there was a real ‘boom’ going on.

Where was the waste to go? Straight across the South Road to a large piggery owned by the butter factory, of course. The council did not want a piggery within the township and it didn’t want a waste pipe under the road, either, but it wanted the electricity the butter factory was generating, for street lighting. A deal was made.

Melbourne’s population was increasing rapidly and Drouin was in an ideal position to sell milk into the whole-milk market. It had a direct rail link and it was closer than many other dairying areas. Bill Kraft became the Manager in 1930 and he consolidated the factory’s position by encouraging increased winter production on local farms. Winter supplies of whole milk had always been a problem.

Kraft’s next step was to guarantee Drouin access to the metropolitan market on its own terms. He bought the Croftbank Dairies, in Cranbourne, to obtain their Melbourne distribution licence, and then bought a dairy in Kensington to provide a distribution centre. A wholly-owned transport company was then formed to provide the milk collection service so vital to factory supply.

In 1932 a new wing was built to provide an efficient receiving system for milk in cans. The milk emptied from the cans was fed by gravity through a series of coolers and pasteurisers. The Agriculture Minister, Slater, opened this new facility on 9 February 1932.

Under Kraft’s visionary management Drouin had laid the foundations for the business successes which saw it become the only surviving independent co-operative in Gippsland. Part of that continuing success was diversification of the products. Before World War II Drouin was producing casein from the Montague Avenue plant. In 1952, when anti-Japanese feelings were still high, Bill Kraft saw the value of selling casein to japan and went to that country to set up an export trade, starting in 1956, that was of enormous value.

K.L. Ballantyne had been the distributors of Drouin butter for a long time. Kraft offered them the cheese distribution as well, and became a director of that company at the time and therefore had an ever greater chance to serve Drouin’s interests.

Bill Kraft was a local boy, born in Bunyip in 1900. His parents sold supplies to the men clearing draining the Great Swamp and eventually took up a selection on the swamp themselves. They later owned Kraft’s Hotel in Bunyip.

Young Bill joined the Drouin Co-op in 1918 as an office boy and his energy and foresight, and his love of the industry, took him to very high levels, He was a very active player in community organisations, too, and the manager of the butter factory was always an important man in any town that had a butter factory. In 1969 he was admitted to the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his wide contributions.

Applications for first round offers for places in kindergartens in Baw Baw and Cardinia shires next year close at the end of the month.

In Baw Baw the closing date in Tuesday, June 30, while Cardinia’s deadline is a few days earlier, Friday, June 26.

Information about how to apply and applications forms can be accessed on the websites of the two councils.

Baw Baw shire has 16 kindergartens located at Warragul (five), Drouin (four), Erica,

It was probably Bill Kraft’s drive that maintained the Drouin factory’s independence as much as anything else, but he was ably supported by men like Arthur Beeching, Keith Quigley and Noel Housden.

The success of the Drouin factory was underpinned by the fact that it swallowed up some smaller operations. Down on the flats of the Koo wee rup Swamp there were several creameries set up. Vervale, Iona, Cora Lynn and Bayles all had plants of one kind or another. Vervale was run by Holdenson and Nielson and closed down in 1905. The Iona plant of the fresh Food and frozen Storage Company closed down in 1902. The Cora Lynn creamery might have been set up by the Drouin mob but I doubt it, though it was certainly owned by Drouin before World War II. The Bayles Dairy Company which, like Lang Lang, took only cream, was taken over in 1944, bringing new economies of scale.

A new pattern was developing as roads and trucks became better. As the creameries had been amalgamated and then closed, so were many of the butter factories. By 1985 the structure was one that even Kraft could barely have imagined.

In that year there were only eight butter factories left, owned by four companies. The giants were Petersville, Unigate and Murray Goulburn, with Drouin the only independent butter factory left in Gippsland.

Longwarry, Neerim South, Trafalgar, Thorpdale, Willow Grove and Yarragon.

The 25 kindergartens in Cardinia shire include those located at Bayles, Bunyip, Garfield, Koo wee rup, Lang Lang and Nar Nar goon.

The four year-old kindergarten program for up to 15 hours per week for eligible children in partially government funded.

The program for three year-olds usually includes sessions up to six hours per week is currently not government funded.