"Consumer Tastes Against Big Lamb Market In U.S.”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29674, 18 November 1961, Page 13

"Consumer Tastes Against Big Lamb Market In U.S.”

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 17. There was no point in telling fairy tales" about the American market for imported lamb, said an American meat executive, Mr H. E. Swig, in Wellington today. . Swi« is president of Allied Packers of San Francisco Philadelphia and Honolulu, large importers of New Zealand meat for some yean. He said he had noted a statement in the press suggesting that the American market needed lamb badly. That is not in accord with the facts.” Rebuilding the American consumers’ interest in lamb was a long-term job that offered a sound prospect 1 but it would be quite wrong to imagine the American market today is badly in need of, or looking for The per capita consump-

tion of lamb in the United States had been very small. Many areas of the country consumed practically no lamb. "The American sheep producers have been doing their utmost to revive consumer interest in lamb and have budgeted more than 1,000.000 dollars a year for advertising and promoting lamb sales,” he said. In spite of this, lamb prices in the United States recently had been the lowest in 15 years. “The Meat Expbrt Development Company of New Zealand and the Meat Board have recently made an extensive survey of the American market to determine how best to present New Zealand lamb to that market,” he said. "I believe this work is progressing well, and I think that, with a continuation of it, a market can be built up in the United States for New

Zealand lamb, but only at the considerable expense normally involved for the introduction of anything new on the highly-competitive American market." It should be recognised, said Mr Swig, that the development of a market in the United States could not be expected to proceed quickly, because consumer eating habits did not change fast