PRE-PACKAGING OF MEAT

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28231, 20 March 1957, Page 14

PRE-PACKAGING OF MEAT

Place In N.Z. Industry

(New Zealand Press Association) HASTINGS, March ID.

New Zealand must watch that in advocating pre-packaged meat it was not introducing additional cost factors into meat production which could not be recouped in the selling price. Mr J. S. Coleman, general manager for W. and R. Fletcher (New Zealand), Ltdsaid today. He was speaking at the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society’s chiller beef luncneon at the Tomoana freezing works. A question asked was, “Why go to all this bother about chilled beef? Why not ship it all as quick-frozen, pre-packaged steaks and roasts and other cuts?” he said.

Mr Coleman said that his answer would be that the prepackaged, quick-frozen cut business was one that would gradually develop, and would play an important part in our marketing. "It is always foolish to make any sweeping prophecies, but in my opinion it will be many years before the quick-frozen, prepackaged meat business plays a dominant part in our industry,” he said. Beef Production New Zealand had not built up its beef production sufficiently to provide as much of Britain’s beef needs as it should, producers were told today, said Mr Coleman. Last year all New Zealand could have supplied, excluding cow beef, would have been 52,000 tons, against Britain’s buying requirements of 438,000 tons,'he said.

In spite of this, considerable concern had been expressed in New Zealand at the large tonnage of beef Britain was buying from foreign countries, particularly from South America. New Zealand should not be content with such a small share of Britain’s beef business, said Mr Coleman.

Although it was vital that New Zealand retained the right to sell in every part of the world without restriction, it must be borne in mind that Britain was, and would continue to be. New Zealand’s best customer for meat. Mr Coleman said that the development of the chilled beef industry was the most important, task. “Our ambition is to. reach the position where we can land a shipment of chilled beef from New Zealand in London etfery Monday morning so that our customers can rely on a regular delivery each week.”