Many Outlets For Sale Of N.Z. Meat

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 8

Many Outlets For Sale Of N.Z. Meat

With an astonishing variety of methods of sale, New Zealand meat was in a pretty enviable position from a selling point of view, Mr C. Hilgendorf, a member of the Meat Board, said at a small function held in Christchurch this week when the British New Zealand Meat Company’s gold challenge cup for the best shipments of lambs sent to the company from New Zealand in the 1963-64 season was presented to Mr L. G. Witte, of Teddington.

Mr Hilgendorf said that all sorts of companies were operating in New Zealand—some were buyers and processors; some were only processors; there were companies that only bought; there were English companies, New Zealand companies and an American company; there was a company that bought on schedule, processed its own meat and was also a wholesaler and retailer; there were companies that bought here and were wholesalers; and there were companies that bought here and would sell to anyone who would buy. Although the farmer complained a bit about the price that he received for his stock, Mr Hilgendorf said, he derived some benefit from this wide variety of methods of sale. For the farmer who complained about the price that he was receiving and felt that the exporters were taking him for a ride, the answer was to sell through one of the reputable traders which would enable him to find out exactly what his lambs were worth on a particular day and also fairly well what the pelts and wool were worth. Mr Hilgendorf said he would be surprised if such selling became universal and should it eventuate the enormous number of small parcels would create great difficulties in shipping and handling, but this was the ultimate test and there would be few farmers anywhere else whose products were transported over such long distances, who would have this opportunity open to them. He was proud that the board had been able to maintain that privilege for farmers, but in the future this would depend to a great extent on there being individual buyers in the United Kingdom able to carry on this sort of trade. Numbers of individuals were finding it difficult to survive and the tendency was for these to group themselves together for the larger unit tended to be more efficient, but some individual traders still survived and he hoped that they would for many a day.

Mr Hilgendorf recalled that over the last few years there had been some criticism of lamb from Canterbury. This was in the first place on account of lambs being longlegged and also because some persons were of opinion that the eye of meat was not as good as it had been in the past. Mr Hilgendorf said he found this unpalatable and he did not like it much, but it was something that he felt had to be taken notice of. Area representatives of the Meat Board in the United Kingdom stated consistently that lambs that were criticised on the score of conformation came from Canterbury. True Earlier, in a tape recorded message to the gathering, Mr Austin Kingwell, managing director of the British New Zealand Meat Company, referred to the statement made recently to “The Press” by Mr A. C. Wright, of Dunsandel, when he returned to New Zealand with the meat export grades committee set up by the Meat Board. Mr Wright said that there appeared to be too many longlegged and weak-loined lambs in the Canterbury kill, and that the Canterbury kill comprising mainly lambs of excellent conformation and character was being spoilt by the apparent increase of these weak lambs. This was perfectly true, Mr Kingwell said. But most of these lambs were sold on schedule and it was felt that lambs that his company received were the best that came out of New Zealand. The majority of their clients came to them knowing that they could purchase really first grade lambs. Mr Kingwell said that the current season had been a disappointing one for prices—it was the second poor season in 11. Money had been lost shipping lambs on schedule, but his company was holding the great majority of lambs shipped to it and it would be disappointed if these were not sold by the end of the season at a price that would show a margin above schedule.

Mr A. McDonald quoted the case of a farmer who had shipped 36,000 lambs over 12 years at the rate of about 3000 a year. In that period he had only one year when the returns were below schedule and one year in which they broke even, and over the (whole period the margin above schedule was 10s 6d per head. There was the situation where second grade lamb was bringing as much as first or prime quality, said Mr Kingwell, but this was due to the high percentage of prime quality in the kill and the demand for the limited quantity of second quality forcing the price up, but if there was an over-supply of second quality lambs the price for those lambs would fall and they would also take with them the price for prime quality. Mr Kingwell suggested that the country should continue to try to produce the lambs on which its reputation had been built. Mr Witte, who farms 780 acres at Teddington and sent 1300 lambs to the company in the 1963-64 season, said that shipping his lambs suited his farming procedure. He did not draft many lambs before January 1 and he found that by the time his lambs reached England the market was usually at a fairly good level.

He said his aim was to draft lambs at about the 32 to 331 b mark, and at that stage they also had put on a little more wool. Because he did not have the opportunity to buy in lambs to fatten he had to get the maximum return from those that he had. His lambs are out of Romney ewes mated with Southdown rams. Mr Witte recalled how after his father started shipping lambs to England in 1955 he had himself gone to England to look into the business and had donned a white coat on Smithfield market to sell their own lamb to a chain butcher and had then gone to the butcher’s shop to buy some of their own lamb, which he had had cooked in the flat of friends. Mr Kingwell recalled that the Witte family had been one of the first three lamb producers to consign lambs to his company after free trading in meat had been restored after the war, and in each case these families were still doing so with the sons in each case now being in control. He said that Mr Witte’s father had always produced an extremely fine quality lamb.

It was surprising, said Mr Kingwell, that the cup had been won so many times by young farmers, and it was on men like Mr Witte junior that the future of the country would depend. Mr Hilgendorf presented the cup to Mr Witte.