Work started on the vacreator in 1923, when H. Lamont Murray and Frank S. Board were about to open a butter factory in Te Aroha. By removing unwanted flavours from the cream, they hoped to get a higher price for their butter overseas.
The cream is mixed with steam, which both pasteurises (kills micro-organisms) and deodorises, (removes unwanted smells and tastes). The cream passes through four separate chambers before it is dispatched for further processing into butter.
Refined in the 1930s, the process was first used at Northern Wairoa Cooperative Dairy Company in Dargaville. With the unwanted flavours removed, the butter could be frozen for up to two years without spoiling. In doing so, the vacreator played a large part in strengthening New Zealand's trade links with Britain during the World War II period. The vacreator process was so successful that it now appears throughout the world.
