Japanese resisting dearer mutton

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33050, 18 October 1972, Page 1

Japanese resisting dearer mutton

New Zealand cannot expect to send larger quantities of mutton to Japan, nor should it expect too high a price for mutton, according to members of a Japanese meat trade party who arrived in Christchurch yesterday afternoon.

Sponsored by the influential trade journal, “Meat Trade News,” the party of 19 includes representatives of meat processors, importers, and retailers.

Noting that the price in the last six months had gone up by almost 50 per cent, they said that unless mutton became cheaper they would be forced to turn to cheaper materials for the manufacture of ham and sausages if manufacturers were to make a profit.

They said that the price of ham was virtually fixed in Japan and it was almost impossible to raise it. The visitors said that they

> might again have to import , horse meat from South America or cheap beef or ’ pork. Mainland China might be a source of pork in the ' future.

Japanese looked on ham or sausage made from pork or beef as being of a higher quality than that made from mutton or fish, and with living standards rising in the country people would prefer ham made from pork unless alternative raw materials such as mutton were cheaper. However, they discounted the possibility of artificial meats taking over from natural meats. Some manu-

facturers had tried to make artificial meat but no-one wanted to eat it and they had given it up. Bigger business in lamb could be expected, they said. The Japanese had been eating beef only for about 70 years, and lamb and mutton for less than 10 years; and efforts were being made to teach the people that lamb was a superior product to other meats.

Important in this respect was the use of lamb in school lunch programmes, so that boys and girls were becoming accustomed to it with the prospect that they would continue to eat it in later life. The New Zealand Meat Board was seeking to promote the image of lamb in television and newspaper advertising and “New Zealand lamb corners” had been established in some big butchers’ shops and in department stores.

It was also necessary to instruct the housewife how to cook the meat and how it could be done to reduce odours that were offensive to the sensitivities of the Japanese. Gradual rise The Japanese said that New Zealand could expect' a

gradual increase in lamb exports to Japan of about 20 per cent a year, or a doubling in about five years.

Retailers or butchers, would like their mutton and lamb in boneless form because wages were rising in Japan and workers were riot easy to obtain for butchers’ shops. Processors would like mutton in boneless or bone-in form, they said. They had found Australian boneless mutton to be superior to that from New Zealand because they understood that those carcases that were bone out in New Zealand were those that were not of such good quality. Today the Japanese will will visit the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company’s works at Belfast, the port facilities at Lyttelton, and butchers’ shops in Christchurch before leaving for Wellington in the late afternoon. They will be in New Zealand for the rest of the week.