PRODUCE “PILE-UP”

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23361, 21 June 1941, Page 6

PRODUCE “PILE-UP”

MR W. GOODFELLOW IN AMERICA

Mr William Goodfellow, Managing Director Of Amalgamated Dairies, Ltd., of Auckland, who is now visiting England, told a' representative of the “New York Times’’ when passing through that city on May 10, that the sinking of 40 per cent, of the ships carrying New Zealand dairy products to England via the Panama Canal and the United Kingdom has caused a "pile-up” of undistributed food in storage. “Down Under.” . Concerning New Zealand’s plight, says the paper, Mr Goodfellow, “a tall, spare man of 61,” assented: “There are several million carcases of mutton and lamb awaiting shipment. We also have an excess of 20,000 tons of butter—with a new season’s ‘make’ coming on. Produce is piling up heavily and we are very worried about shipping.” Twenty refrigerator ships would relieve the shortage and free vast food stores accumulating in New Zealand, said Mr Goodfellow. Reluctant to forecast where or whether the ships might be obtained, he added that he would confer with officials in London concerning the shortage. On a month’s visit to England, he also planned to "see about” his company’s wide distributing system there and to return to Auckland by way of India and Malaya ‘‘if it is possible.’ Mr Goodfellow said his country of 1.500.000 inhabitants produced annually 130.000 tons of butter, exporting 82 per cent, of it,' and 120,000 tons of cheese, exporting 95 per cent. Sixty ships, he said, normally carried this and other dairy export trade. He declined to reveal the exact number of ships lost, but said that "about 40 per cent, were sunk since the war started.” The dairy and meat produce affected by the shipping shortage, he added, "amount to a six-month plleup.”