FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 59, 10 March 1903, Page 3

FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

A HINT TO GRAZIERS.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day,

Mr A. T. Harper, who took home tbe patent of a. meat defrosting process, invented by a Canterbury farmer, and who has recently returned to the colony, got a trood insight into the meat industry, and* was able to gather a lot of information about the relative positions of New Zealand and Argentine mutton in tho Home markets. ' What struck him at once was the earnestness of the attempt made by Argentine growers to secure the market for themselves. They have a properly organised trade, organised from the Argentine, and the value of organisation is beginning to tell. At the present time any butcher can go to Smitlifiekl and buy' New Zealand mutton, which he takes away and sell as anything he likes to call it. On one occasion °Mr Harper went into a small butcher's shop and was taken througli to a slaughteryard on the premises. Here lie found a. number of fresh killed sheep, and these, he understood, formed the matcher's stock-in-trade. On lookino- round, however, lie saw a long canval screen running along one side of the building ami on the floor beneath it was what looked suspiciously like "drips from frozen meat. On lifting the screen he found that tbe wall, some forty feet lon- was hung with hindquarters of New Zealand mutton. The butcher explained that this was his reserve stock, Lid he was thawing it to make it read? for sale as English mutton This is the 11 Xew Zealand mutton is often treated simply because it is not properly ,ooked after. Mr Harper says that New y. .land -rowers cannot be urged too stvon.lv to combine aud make proper ,rdements for the placing of their "t..ton in England. Until they do so t v enu hardly expect to compete successfully with their Argentine rivals.