Cream Separator (Excell No.2)
Object detail
Accession number
1964.299
Description
Cream Separator - large with a red finish with silver geometric design around top. Excell No.2. Crank handle on side with wooden grip
Brief History
Dairy farming in New Zealand was transformed by the introduction of technology to the farm. The invention of the cream separator, mechanical milking machines and herd testing for butterfat potential heralded the start of dairying as a major industry.
Farmers in isolated country areas carried their loads on sledges and packhorses to skimming stations. Cream was separated out and sold to a dairy factory and the skim milk carted home again to feed to pigs or calves. With the invention of the home separator, a centrifugal device that separates cream from milk, the farmer only needed to carry the cream, about 10% of the volume of unseparated milk, to the factory. The early separators were, like this one, manually powered by a crank handle.
The Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval is credited with inventing the cream separator in 1877. The first cream separator in New Zealand was a Nakarov imported from Denmark in 1884 by A.B. Fitchett.
As roads and transportation improved in New Zealand in the 1930s, cream began to be collected from farms by the dairy factories in cream cans. When the value of skim milk was recognised, on-farm separating and collection of cream began to be replaced by the collection of whole milk in tankers.
Farmers in isolated country areas carried their loads on sledges and packhorses to skimming stations. Cream was separated out and sold to a dairy factory and the skim milk carted home again to feed to pigs or calves. With the invention of the home separator, a centrifugal device that separates cream from milk, the farmer only needed to carry the cream, about 10% of the volume of unseparated milk, to the factory. The early separators were, like this one, manually powered by a crank handle.
The Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval is credited with inventing the cream separator in 1877. The first cream separator in New Zealand was a Nakarov imported from Denmark in 1884 by A.B. Fitchett.
As roads and transportation improved in New Zealand in the 1930s, cream began to be collected from farms by the dairy factories in cream cans. When the value of skim milk was recognised, on-farm separating and collection of cream began to be replaced by the collection of whole milk in tankers.
Marks
EXCELL No.2 Painted
Credit Line
Cream Separator (Excell No.2), 1964.299. The Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT).
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