Italian limit on sale of frozen lamb criticised

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32613, 22 May 1971, Page 2

Italian limit on sale of frozen lamb criticised

(New Zealand Pres* Association)

WELLINGTON, May 21.

In a speech given today at the International Household Fair in Turing Italy, the European director of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board (Mr D. L. Martin) criticised the Italian Government on the attitude it had adopted towards the sale of frozen meat in retail butchers’ shops in Italy.

Mr Martin, according to a statement issued in Wellington, said it was the first occasion on which the board had exhibited in Turin. “The board’s objective is to try to assist New Zealand exporters to expand their sales of New Zealand’s lamb and other types of meat in Italy, the E.E.C., and on the Continent,” he said. Expansion of New Zealand lamb sales in Italy would be greatly assisted if the Italian Government would stop discriminating by law against the sale of frozen meat and permit both fresh and frozen lamb to be sold in the same retail butchers shops. As was the custom in all other countries where New Zealand lamb was sold, including the United Kingdom, the United f ates, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Greece, Mr Martin said. According to Mr Martin the present Government restriction on the distribution of frozen meat prohibited most Italian housewives from having the opportunity of purchasing and eating reason-ably-priced, high quality New Zealand lamb throughout the year.

There were more than 50,000 retail shops permitted under licence granted by local municipalities to sell

meat in Italy. Of this total almost all were licensed to sell fresh meat and only 250 shops were permitted under licence to sell frozen meat, he said. THREE SHOPS In Turin, a city with more than a million people there were 983 retail shops licensed by the Turin municipality to sell meat, and only 3 were licensed to sell frozen meat More progressive supermarket chains in Continental countries where New Zealand lamb was now being sold were finding New Zealand lamb a profitable article to sell, he said. During 1970, sales of all classes of New .Zealand meat to European Continental countries rose to 42,000 tons, and of this total, lamb sales rose to 16,000. “We estimate that in 1971 New Zealand lamb exports to Continental countries will again increase to about 20,000 tons, and all classes of meat to about 50,000 tons,” Mr Martin said. OBJECTIVES "Our objectives in exhibiting at the fair are to introduce our lamb and other types of New Zealand meat to many Italian housewives, to learn about meat-trade cutting, presentation, and distribution practices, and Government procedures here; to learn more about housewives

cooking and meat eating habits; to try and overcome the Govemment - created obstacles which seriously restrict the development of a market for New Zealand lamb and all other types of meat in Italy, and, if the Govemment’s restriction on imported lamb sales could be removed, to encourage Italian wholsalers and retailers to sell New Zealand lamb

throughout the year,” he said, “It is difficult to understand why a prosperous country like Italy, which has a large population of 54m people and is rather short of meat supplies, should penalise the entry, restrict distributton, and thereby inflate the price of imported lamb with these many Govern-ment-created obstacles,” he said.