TINNED DRIPPING FOR BRITAIN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14823, 10 November 1948, Page 6

TINNED DRIPPING FOR BRITAIN

QUESTION OF INCLUSION IN FOOD PARCELS ALL FAT "REQUIRED FOR EXPORT “There is a demand for edible drinping in lins for parcels for Britain, but this has been frowned on because all i'A is voouived fo>’ export,” said Mr W. Stevenson, a representative of a New Zealand canning firm in a statement. Mr Stevenson added that there was no difference between exporting the dripping in parcels and in any other wav. The Price Tribunal hud checked the parcel system, he maintained, by fixing a price about 5s a dozen tins under Mr Stevenson said that his firm, for example, had been collecting butcher’s ’dripping., re-rendering it. and packing it in tins for export. A profit of less than one pennv a tin was made. When the exchange rate altered the firm was stopped from exporting, in spite of the fact Ihat the New Zealand Government had been collecting £2,500,000 a year for controlling fats. “The New Zealand Government said that drippine was not wanted in small tins, while the department handling it for the British Government at the other end said it was wanted in these packages,” Mr Stevenson went on. “We thought in our innocence that it would _ make little difference to us, that if the Government said our dripmng was not. required for export, the Price Tribunal could not prevent us from selling it at a reasonable price on the New Zealand market.”

Mr Stevenson quoted a letter received from the Price Tribunal after an explanation was sought by the firm. The letter, he said, read: “The policy in terms of which local canned dri opine or ices are maintained- at the 1941 level is a_ loneestablished one, and one that well known to all canners and it would be unfair to authorise higher .prices in your case.”