Butter boxes for the masses

Kids today wouldn’t know what a butter box or butter churn is, but many of you reading this will, I’m sure.

In 1905 an important announcement was made by the Egmont Co-Operative Box Company in Eltham. The company had induced practically all the cooperative dairy companies in Taranaki to become shareholders. Seventeen shareholding co-operative dairy companies were joined by 10 leading factories, with nine smaller companies likely to join immediately after their present contracts expired.

The company had secured a contract to supply 2000,000 feet of white pine per year for a term of 15 years. That’s a lot of timber. The Egmont Box Company Ltd was formed in 1906 by the Taranaki CoOperative Dairy Companies to manufacture, market and distribute butter boxes and cheese crates to its various shareholding companies for the export of butter, and also the related products, to markets overseas.

Farms carved out of virgin bush were slowly being stumped and grassed by the early 1900s and many had a small herd of cows, 48 being a large herd back then. Dairy factories sprung up in and around the many small settlements in Taranaki.

Kahikatea trees were felled on the slopes of Mt Taranaki in huge numbers as demand grew for crates and boxes by the dairy companies, as the timber did not taint the cheese or butter.

Originally the timber mill was built in Eltham and at first only Kahikatea timber was used but, as it was depleted, radiata pine replaced it as the main timber used.

A newspaper report in 1907 states practically all of the dairy companies in Taranaki were now members of the association, there being only about 300 tonnes per annum manufactured by non shareholders. The old Egmont Box Factory has been pulled down and a new one rebuilt during the past year and a new storage shed capable of holding 80,000 boxes or cases had also been built.

The factory had turned out

200,316 butter boxes and 71,130 cheeses cases during the year.

One problem the directors had to contend with was that insufficient notice was given by factories regarding their requirements for the season. At present there was about

1,500,000 feet of timber stocked in the yards. If all the factories went in for cheese making the company would have to double its stock, the report reads. Native timber was in high demand for housing and by 1945 timber supplies depleted and it was decided to shift the mill to the Rotorua-Taupo area. The Eltham factory closed on July 18, 1946.