ARGENTINE MEAT FOR ENGLAND

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23717, 15 August 1942, Page 3

ARGENTINE MEAT FOR ENGLAND

MORE BEEF; BIG LAMB DROP (F.0.0.C.) LONDON, June 12. At'the fortieth annual meeting of the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Company in London, Sir James Caird (chairman) indicated that not only meat exporters within the British Empire had had their profits limited, as cattle prices had been so regulated by the Argentine Government as to afford the frigorificos only a small turn of profit on the prices paid by the British Government on their frozen meat and canning contracts. However, slaughtering had greatly increased in 1941, the number of head of cattle handled by the Smithfield and Argentine Company being 395,389, an advance of 114.131 on the year. Sheep and lamb sjaughtenngs had receded from 440,631 in 1940 to 186,069 last year, but pig killings in 1941 were 33,305, as compared with only 3691 head the year before. During the year their general manager (Mr J. A. Brewster) had discovered a new quick-freezing process by which whole quarters of boned-out beef, could be frozen in the same number of hours as it formerly took in days. The new process enabled the saving in transport and storage space of approximately 35 per cent., compared with ordinary boneless beef, and for this reason the system was likely to be generally adopted. In order to keep pace with the British Government’s war demands for meat, the S. and A. Company, Sir James further said, had had to increase the cold storage accommodation at its Zarate works, 80 miles up the River Plate, as freight shortage reduced the number of calls at that point. A new store, capable of holding 3000 tons of ordinarily frozen' boneless beef or 4050 tons of quick-frozen boneless beef, had