Containers For Export Meat Studied

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30158, 15 June 1963, Page 14

Containers For Export Meat Studied

A specialist committee is now helping to develop new containers for New Zealand export meat, according to the magazine of the packaging divisions of the United Empire Box Group.

The committee is known as the meat packaging development committee, on which are representatives of mills, meat companies, and meat research organisations and the container-making industry

It is the job of this committee to investigate every possible type of board to find the type most suitable for meat packaging. The committee also concerns itself with package design. Recently the committee used 25 different types and grades of board in a variety of container designs to find the container most suitable for a particular meat product Each container had to undergo tough laboratory tests. Then each was packed with meat as it would be for export and was sent through

the normal handling procedures until it was stowed in a ship's hold. At this stage the containers which best met the requirements were selected for a trial shipment to various destinations overseas.

“These tests are still under way,” said the committee chairman, Mr G. Phillips, the Auckland area general manager of the United Empire Box Company. Ltd. “But within a few months we expect to tie able to submit a recommendation to the New Zealand Meat Board.”

With Mr Phillips on the committee are Dr Mary Cameron (New Zealand Meat Industry Research Institute) Messrs T Graham (W and R Hellaby, Ltd ), T E. Grainger (Johnston Cardboard Box Company), P. R Parr (chief chemist, Westfield Freezing Company), M. M Rands (chief chemist, Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Cooperative. Ltd ), Dr R Jobin (Whakatane Board Mills), and Dr G A Nicholls (New Zealand Forest Products. Ltd ).