FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20621, 10 August 1932, Page 12

FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER.

FOOD RESEARCH PROGRESS. A NEW REFRIGERANT. '.l-'bom Our Special Cokbespoxdkct.) LONDON, July 7. i he frozen moat market continues to (■:• .perience very dull conditions, and ! rices remain at very low levels. In >pito of this, importers are called upon io deal with what appears to be an incessant flow of heavy supplies from .ibroad. In the last week of June half a million mutton and lamb carcases iind 06,000 beef quarters were received in the Port of London. Top price for light Now Zealand lamb carcases now range- at 6d, and this cheapness reacts severely on the sale of frozen mutton. New Zealand wether mutton is priced in Smithfield at 4d and less. The appeal mice of a consignment of l'asmanian jjork on the London market recently was a feature which indicates that all countries are endeavouring to. share in the extending market in this meat in the United Kingdom. Home rork production does not show any appreciable increase. The meat trade is considerably occupied in thought just now with the forthcoming Ottawa Conference, for which two Empire meat experts, namely, Mr R. S. Forsyth, London manager of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board, and Mr C. F. G. McC'ann. Agent-General for South Australia, who is advising the Commonwealth Government, are leaving this month. In a year of bad financial results for most undertakings, the Union ibid Storage Co., Ltd., has achieved the triumph of a still higher profit, the net profits for 1931 amounting to £1,189,857, which compares with £1,166,185 in 1930. The Board of the company are taking steps to put forward resolutions for the conversion of ihe eompany'6 shares into stock, which, it is said, will effect a considerable economy, while in no way affecting the rijhte of the shareholders.

Dry Ice Marketing. Reports to band during the last week of open summer weather record large increases in the sales of the new refrigerant popularly known as "dry ice." This commodity, which is solidified carbon dioxide gas, is manufactured mainly at three large factories, one of them at Billingham, in Yorkshire, owned by the Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., and the other two under the control of Distillers, Ltd.. one in Yorkshire, and the other on the banks of the Thames at Dagenham, near London, and next door to Ford's giant motor works. Because of its handiness and cooling power, dry ice is finding favour in certain lines of food transport; principally ice cream, but also in several other varieties of food traffic, including fish on special journeys from the coast to inland markets. There is great freight saving with the solid CO2, which evaporates to nothing, leaving no water. It c£ols at the extraordinarily low temperature of about —llOdeg. Fahr. The Imperial Chemical Industries is understood to have made arrangements with the railways in England to pack, load, and distribute orders of fifty pounds upwards of solid CO2 (the 1.C.1, brand is known as "I>rikold") from railhead stores at a growing number of points up and down the country. Another outstanding use is being found for this new commodity. Whereas supplies of liquified CO2 gas were formerly distributed in heavy cast-iron cylinders throughout the country f>r supply purposes to refrigeration plants, the I.CII. rave now patented a system whereby the owner of a CO2 refrigerating compressor requiring a new supply of liquid CO2 for re-charging Ms machine, can purchase the gas in its solidified form, put it into a converter and immediately have available the CO2 in a pure liquified form. By this means the freightage of heavy cylinders is avoided.

T«llow Fat In Frozen Babbits. The Food Investigation Board has jiat published a Beport by Dr. J. B. Vickery, entitled "The Yellowing of Abdominal Fat .of. Frozen Babbits," (Special Beport No. 42). This document relates all the details of the research work on this important phenomenon in the overseas rabbit trade, which, it states, is due to the process of oxidation, dependent mainly upon the temperature and duration of storage. The only trade remedy* the report suggests, would appear to be storage at lower temperatures than those hitherto employed. In several freezing works in Australia, rabbits are stored at temperatures ranging from minus 18 to minus 15 degrees Cent. (0 to plus 5 degrees Fahr.). It is suggested that the temperature of storage should hot exceed minus 14deg Cent, (plus 7deg Fahr.), at which no appreciable yellowing should take place during period up to six or seven months in duration. The suggestion is also made of the use of a coating material' to exclude the oxygen from the fatty tissues, tests with a certain type of meat coating material having produced good results. A third means of dealing with the trouble. is for the trappers to thoroughly bleed the rabbits and free the abdominal fatty •issues of all superficial blood during the process of packing. This, it is said, wi]l materially assist in reducing | the rate of onset of yellowing. Wood Taint from Butter-Boxes. Science has been helping the food industry in another direction, namely in helping to discover means to overcome the trouble met with in the Australian butter trade of tainting of the butter from boxes made from what is known as "stinker " pine. According to a report from Mr W. J. Wiley, M.Sc, tests with casein-sprayed boxes have given excellent results of freedom from the trouble. The spray used was casein in borax and formaldehyde solution. In London recently, there were viewed batter-boxes in which a cellulose-coated lining was placed between the butter and the box interior. This was on trial by the New Zealand Butter Board, wbleh will doubtless, in due course, state H§ opinion on this matter. Drying Action In Fish Storage. A difficulty encountered in fish cold *tora«» is the lack of moisture, hitherto only obviated by renewing the iceMlutlug 0t the frozen fish with consetffumt Additional handling and cost. A wmviydimovercil method of dealing rtth this problem is the coating of i*li with uohydrogenated cotton seed «4t, whUto i§ wid to resist the drying «tf#«t «tf th« air in cold storage to a #*W* «t*»t, and is a very ■ effective frftrtiW* tut ff'gfojisfftff of the fish. M*mr*h Wftrk in lh« United States m/mt Hi fMmim Ji responsible for m§ 4Umvmy,