Containers For Meat Predicted

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31614, 27 February 1968, Page 14

Containers For Meat Predicted

Between 30 and 40 per cent of New Zealand’s meat might be sent overseas in container vessels within five years, said Mr W. M. Pooley, managing director of Towers and Company, Ltd, United Kingdom, and chairman of the London Imported Meat Trades Association.

Containers had been proved in Australia and the United States to have advantages over conventional shipping methods and there was no reason why container shipping should not be a practi-

cal proposition for meat, he said.

Towers and Company is owned jointly by the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Ltd, the Southland Frozen Meat Company, Ltd, and the Gear Meat Company, Ltd, and is largely engaged in distributing meat in the United Kingdom. Mr Pooley, who is discussing the introduction of containers while on his tour of New Zealand, said there were large hurdles to be overcome.

Capital had to be spent in New Zealand on internal transport and docks, while the distribution from the United Kingdom might need radical changes. Theoretically, containers

should do something to con tain costs of freight although they might add to distribution costs in the United Kingdom in the meantime. When asked about the effect of the recent high lamb prices on the buying resistance of British housewives, Mr Pooley said that there was no marked consumer resistance against the price of New Zealand lamb. “The British housewife considers New Zealand lamb to be still a good buy.” There was, however, some resistance against beef, he said.

He declined to comment on the outcome of a British Government committee’s findings on whether the ban on Argentine meat should be lifted.

“There is absolutely no proof that the foot-and-mouth epidemic was in any way caused by imported meat,” he said. “It was immoral and very dangerous from the New Zealand point of view that the ban should be Imposed on suspicion alone.”

Mr Pooley said that the United Kingdom production of lamb would be lower this year than in any of the previous three years.