Prepackaged Beef For British Market Urged

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28551, 2 April 1958, Page 18

Prepackaged Beef For British Market Urged

There were already more than 100 depots in Britain for the distribution and delivery of deep frozen prepackaged British meat, said Sir William Polson, of Wanganui, in a statement, the aim of which was to interest “my fellow farmers and even the Meat Board in the packaging and deep freezing of our beef.” Sir William Polson said that on March 20 in an address to the electoral committee which appointed the Meat Producers' Board, the chairman (Mr J. D. Ormond) said: “You may ask: What are we doing to expand our market in the United Kingdom? We have adopted a policy we believe is healthy, and that the ‘customer is always right', and have adapted our breeding practice. our grading, marketing and promotion to meet the requirement of the market.”

Sir William Polson said: “I am one of those who believe that the board on the contrary has adopted a laissez faire policy which is destined to get us nowhere but which I imagine will increase the complacency of the meat freezing industry. It will protect their handsome profits and expanding reserves (which in the case of overseas operators have been described as usurious) with little fear of additional costs for new methods in the nearfuture. "Quite recently the Meat Board secured additional protection for the freezing companies by legislation put through Parliament at its request preventing the prepackaging of meat for overseas by anyone else than themselves. “As some of your readers may know I have endeavoured to interest my fellow farmers and even the Meat Board in the packaging and deep freezing of our beef. I pointed out that chilled beef particularly was very badly handled at the English end, giving facts that have never been denied, although Mr Ormond seized on something I did not say—about Thames barges carrying meat—to tell New Zealand farmers I did not know my facts. “What packaging would cost the freezing industry I can't say, but the general manager of Towers. Ltd., a London combination of freezing interests, recently suggested in a speech I listened to in New Zealand that prepackaged meat was unfit to eat and that the United States, which prepackages 80 per. cent, of its meat supply did not freeze it but merely chopped it up behind the shop and packaged it unfrozen.

"Both those statements were so entirely and ludicrously incorrect that no-one bothered to contradict him. But that they indicated the attitude of his companies I have no doubt. He even suggested that we might try packaging 30 years hence. "Now we are told that American interests are going to hire

or build ships each carrying 1500 head of cattle to be shipped alive and looked after and fed and then fattened in the United States at a cost vastly greater than the cost of shipping hygienically and skilfully prepared packaged meat which they really want and which we have not yet succeeded in supplying. “Tile Meat Board does not seem to be interested. The freezing companies are obviously hostile. The present Government is naturally hesitant, thinking of the interests of the freezing company worker if the new American plan materialises. So where do we go from here? “The British we are told don't want packaged meat. “I read an article recently in ‘Achievement,’ a British trade journal, by the chairman of the British Permafrost Meat Packaging Company, in which he spoke of the success of his company and told us there were already more than 100 depots .in England for the distribution and delivery of deep frozen prepackaged British meat. Eight out of 10 of the butchers I interviewed while at Home told me that prepackaging would cut their labour 1 costs by 50 per cent, and that there was an unsupplied demand. “Additional proof of this came to hand in a recent press cutting which told that the town of Oldham, near Manchester, had started a prepackaging depot with the astonishing result that the immediate demand was so much greater than the supply that they were taking steps to handle it far beyond their original intention. “But only the freezing companies can deal with such a demand here, unless the law is altered—or unless the farmers wake up to the importance of looking after their own interests and take action,” the statement said.