Contest Now A Farce

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30100, 6 April 1963, Page 7

Contest Now A Farce

The present chiller beef competitions throughout the country, although producing high quality beef, were a “complete farce,” the general manager of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Ltd. (Mr W. M. Cleland) said this week at the judging on the hooks of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s annual chiller-type beef competition. Mr Cleland said that the competitions had begun at a time when it appeared that the future of New Zealand beef production lay in producing chiller beef for the United Kingdom market, but now there was no such market and the bodies of beef entered in the competition were exported in the frozen Il state and judged in London I as though they were chilled. 1,1 He doubted whether the competitions fulfilled any useful function. Mr Cleland said that his company was going to propose to the Meat Board that the chiller competitions be abandoned after this season and replaced by a competition suited to the pre-cut and pre-packaged beef trade, with the United States. To do this it would probably be necessary to have smaller competitions rather than on a provincial basis. He suggested that the judging could be according to one of the American specifications and said he could envisage a

competition in which the cattle could be judged on the hoof, a useful part of the competition, killed on the Friday and on the Monday at least one side of each of the best entries would be cut to specifications and displayed along with the wastage and trimmings. A similar view was expressed earlier by a member of the. Meat Board (Mr C. Hilgendorf), who was in sympathy with the idea of a cutting competition in smaller zones. The judge of the cattle on the hoof, Mr H. Cundall, of Invercargill, said that the United States market would bring a tremendous number of changes in New Zealand in the production and presentation of beef for export. Mr Cundall said that the United States wanted the best beef in the best pack and presented just as they did their own goods. From the producer’s side it was up to him to produce the best quality and to kill it before it was too fat. With cutting and packaging for export the labour costs involved in cutting and trimming could be considerable and less trimming and easier packaging should be reflected in better returns. Last week Mr Cundall also supported a change in the competition on the lines proposed by Mr Cleland.