Fluctuations In Price Of N.Z. Lamb In U.K.

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29278, 9 August 1960, Page 17

Fluctuations In Price Of N.Z. Lamb In U.K.

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.J

LONDON, August 8. The sharp variation in the wholesale price of New Zealand lamb on the British market this year compared with 12 months ago has been the subject of publicity in the provincial press by members of the London Retail Meat Traders' Association. In letters to country and suburban newspapers they say that a year ago when the price of New Zealand lamb was abnormally low, the New Zealand "Farmers' Association” (presumably Federated Farmers) was “howling” that British butchers were not passing on the price reduction to housewives. Today with the price about 50 per cent, higher

than 12 months ago this “fabulous and unnatural increase” has been largely absorbed by British butchers and passed on by only a fractional percentage to the public. '

The letter writers seem annoyed on two counts, first that New Zealand farmers complained last year and have not patted the butchers on the back this year; second that their complaints were publicised last year by the British national press which has not so far given similar publicity to the changed position this year. “It is a safe assumption that New Zealand farmers will remain strangely quiet but it will be interesting to observe whether certain national newspapers which have this information will make any effort to commend the trade which they were so ready to condemn a year ago,” the letters state. Potato Shipments Up to last Saturday, 224.443 sacks of potatoes had been shipped from Lyttelton) 24.568 in the last fortnight. Details of shipments for the fortnight, with season’s totals in parenthesis, were: Auckland. 4796 sacks (87,856); Wellington, 3348 (42,034); Napier, Gisborne, 9310 (41,829). West Coast North Island 7114 (49,349); Fiji, nil (3375). Although shipping fell by 18,024 sacks in the last fortnight on the figure for the previous period, the total for the season is still slightly ahead of the comparable total for last year 6f 220,977.