BEEF MARKETING IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28080, 22 September 1956, Page 9

BEEF MARKETING IN BRITAIN

GRADING SYSTEM ADVOCATED

.OPINIONS OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY EXPERT

New Zealand fat cattle men are not alone in expressing concern at the market for beef in the United Kingdom. Beef cattle fatteners in Britain are also anxious to improve the market for their cattle. And, of course, this would mean still stiffer competition for overseas meat entering the United Kingdom. Methods for improving home-fattened stock have been advocated by Dr. Allan Fraser, lecturer in animal husbandry at the University of Aberdeen, in the current issue of the “Aberdeen Augus Review.” Dr. Fraser strongly recommends that Britain adopt a scheme of selling cattle on the hooks, the payment being on both weight and grade. There is today, as perhaps never before, complete confusion as to what constitutes quality beef, Dr. Fraser says. It may well be that after a decade of meat rationing, the consuming public has forgotten what good beef looks Qr tastes like or it may be that —as many butchers aver—the public taste has changed. The Public The Judge The best beef is the beef the public wants and is willing to pay most for, and it is to the advantage of the producer of beef, whether breeder or fattener, to know what the public really does want and is willing to pay. The auction ring admittedly has an agreeable element of gamble. Up one week, down the next, and just as in any other gamble, the one unexpected success products forgetfulness of half a dozen failures.

The system of selling fat cattle on the hoof still has many advocates among farmers themselves. In theory, if the price offered be unsatisfactory, the beast, being still unslaughtered, can be withdrawn to live to sell another day. In practice how often does this actually occur? Some farmers will also have it that it is possible to make a more accurate assessment of weight and quality on the hoof than on the hook. The Food Ministry’.s figures of wartime grading on the hoof, were they ever published, would sufficiently dispel that illusion. We have, then, today, two competing methods of marketing fat cattle. The farmer, having fat cattle to sell, may either send them to his local auction market to be sold on] the hoof, or he may consign them to the F.M.C., accepting payment on his animals as weighed and graded carcases Qn the hook.

“I think—l may be wrong—that the element of producer discipline by producers is essential to any successful system of co-operative marketing of farm produce in this strongly individualistic country of Britain,” adds Dr. Fraser.

Swing To Chilled Meat Another view on the outlook for home-raised beef on the British market appeared recently in an agricultural supplement of “The limes.’ “The reasons for the decline of demand in the past year are various,” said the writer, “but there has certainly been no over-production or home killed beef. Butchers who two years ago were selling only home-killeo meat have swung over to a proportion of chilled meat. They found that when home-killed beef was very dear last year they could not make a reasonable margin of profit, and so as soon as chilled beef was again available they tried some with a view to reducing their overall cost price. “During the past year the quality and supply of chilled meat have improved so much that butchers are using more and more. One particular butcher I know has changed over from 100 per cent. English beef a year ago to 40 per cent. English and 60 per cent. Argentine chilled meat. During that time his turnover has remained constant and his gross profit has nearly doubled.

The fact that his turnover has kept up means he has satisfied his customers, and he assures me that the best chilled meat, when thawed out and dried, is indistinguishable from English and if anything, eats even better when cooked. In fact, when I was in this particular butcher’s shop only the other day, I mistook a hindquarter of chilled meat for English. “Thdre is another reason, I believe, for the fall in demand for home-killed meat; this is the consumers’ determination. not to eat or buy fat. And if one butcher won’t sell the housewife what she wants, the one round the corner will. Butchers are in business to make money, just as farmers are, and it is no use blaming them. “Much of the home-killed beef on the market is still too fat, and a lot of what is not too fat is either too strong in the bone or has too little meat in the valuable hindquarters and too much in the cheaper parts. There is no doubt that the best Argentine chilled beef is better than the average of the home-killed.”

FUTURE OF PACKAGED MEAT AUSTRALIAN PROSPECTS DISCUSSED Discussion on the future of packaged meat took place at a recent meeting of the Aberdeen Angus Society of Australia, and Mr H. Gordon Munro, a former president of the society, said he believed that Australian meat eventually would be sold in packaged form. At present packaged meat could be criticised on the cost basis, but Mr Munro said he was worried also about the cost of chilled meat and the time it took to go from Australia to United Kingdom markets.

“With packaged meat you have ease of stowage and obviate the problems of the waterfront and handling of carcases,” he said. “The meat could be carried in any ship with refrigerated space and there is no weight of bones. Also, the meat could be properly graded and sold true to label.”

The chairman of the Australian Meat Board, Mr J. L. Shute, said that butchers’ shops were not equipped to handle packaged meats in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, substantial quantities of packaged Australian meat were being sent over for distribution through big multiple stores, which, however, handled only 20 per cent, of the United Kingdom meat. “In the years that lie ahead the bulk of our meat will be exported in that form, and the board and the trade are alive to the possibilities,” he added. Mr J. Boulware, American Agricultural Attache, said he understood that New Zealand had sent 40.0001 b of packaged lamb to the United States and that it was received with exceptional favour.