Israeli Buyer Rejects Over-fat N.Z. Beef

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31076, 3 June 1966, Page 3

Israeli Buyer Rejects Over-fat N.Z. Beef

“The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, June 2. New Zealand is losing good opportunities to develop meat markets in European and Eastern countries because it is producing over-fat beef cattle from traditional breeds. A representative of the Israel Government who came to New Zealand to buy 1000 tons of prime quarter beef has just departed after failing to secure the full order his Government required.

The buyer was shocked at the amount of fat he saw on prime beef carcases at Petone, Wellington. Before leaving he said he had never seen such wasteful beef as he had in New Zealand.

The assistant general manager of the Gear Meat Co., Ltd., Mr R. Ellicott, said there were prospects of selling several thousand tons of prime beef to Israel, but New Zealand was not producing enough of the type of lean, fleshy beef required. The 1000 tons sought immediately by Israel was to have been a trial shipment, but it was obvious New Zealand could not find the amount of lean meat needed.

“Israel does not want fat,” said Mr Ellicott, "and this applies too, to a number of other potential customers for New Zealand beef, including Italy, Greece, Germany and Spain. “What these countries want in prime beef, as distinct from manufacturing-type beef, is the young, lean, fleshy animal.

“New Zealand has made some progress over recent years but under our grassland system of production we are still not producing half enough of the type of beef required to enable us to break into the markets that are available.” Mr Ellicott said he was sure that lean, meaty crossbred beef from the dairy herd would be acceptable to Israel and other countries if beef of this type were available in the amounts required.

“We can produce fat animals,” he said, “and then trim the fat off them in the works, but this is a costly and wasteful procedure from the standpoint of both producing and processing.”

The production of lean, light-weight beef with a high proportion of red meat to bone and fat has long been advocated by research workers and by Mr R. A. Barton, of Massey University. Yet at the many agricultural and pastoral shows pedigree beef breeders persist in putting emphasis on stock which might look good in the show ring or in the paddock but which does not necessarily look so good when hanging on the hooks in a freezing works. Their attitude has been supported by the chairman of the Meat Board, Sir John Onnond, who has described stud breeders as “practical men with skill and judgment in selection as well as market requirements.” At the Hawke’s Bay spring sihow in 1964, Sir John Ormond criticised the Government for its decision to import European breeds of cattle for beef breeding research.

He said it was not the theorists who produced the animals required for New Zealand conditions and markets.