Increase Likely In Works Charges

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30575, 19 October 1964, Page 1

Increase Likely In Works Charges

There will probably be an increase in processing charges at Canterbury freezing works. A spokesman for the New Zealand Refrigerating Company said his company had not yet fixed the charges for the new season, but the indications were that there would be a small increase for lamb and mutton processing, and the same pattern would probably apply to boner quality cattle. Another company also confirmed that there was a likelihood of a small increase.

While no industry comment was available on the reasons for the increases, they are not unexpected in the light of the considerable expenditure that companies have recently been faced with in raising hygiene standards in their works and the recent wage order. While, as already announced, the

Hawke's Bay Farmers' Meat Company has not raised its freezing rates on lambs, it has, however, found it necessary to make some adjustments to its mutton and wool and pelt processing rates. The spokesman for the New Zealand Refrigerating Company said that the schedule announced on Thursday had taken into account processing costs in all departments—that was freezing charges, fellmongery and pelt curing. The allocation of the processing costs between the respective departments had not yet bee.i completed. It was expected that the over-all re-arrangement of costs would not affect the schedule, as the anticipated increases would not vary materially from those on which the schedule was originally based.