Meat Board’s lamb profit $6.2m

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33141, 3 February 1973, Page 1

Meat Board’s lamb profit $6.2m

CN.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Feb. 2. The Meat Board earned a profit of $6.2m from its lamb marketing in the year ended September 30, 1972, the board’s chairman, (Mr C. Hilgendorf) announced today. The financial outcome of this, the board’s first real marketing venture, was most gratifying, said Mr Hilgendorf.

“The result more than confirms the board’s belief that the exporters were being far too pessimistic about market prospects when they offered producers such a low schedule for lamb at the start of the 1971-72 season,” he said. “The board’s subsequent decision to issue its own schedule, and thus inject some badly-needed confidence into the industry at that critical time, has been amply justified." The profit to date from the lamb marketing was much better than the board had expected, he said, although

there was no doubt that the sale of the board’s lambs was helped enormously by the surge in prices during the i latter half of 1972, when world markets faced a severe shortage of red meats. “But it is also true to say that the combined effect of board policies, undertaken in co-operation with the trade—tighter shipping programmes to avoid over-supply of lamb to the United Kingdom market, the more flexible use of promotion funds, and diversification of lamb away from the United Kingdom market—helped to lift lamb

prices, especially in Britain.” Referring to the disposal of the profit, Mr Hilgendorf said the principle had been established that it should be shared on the same basis as a loss would have been, namely, two-thirds by the Government and one-third by the Meat Industry Reserve Account.

The Government and the board had, however, agreed that when the lamb marketing scheme was completed, the disposal of the Government’s share of any profit would be the subject of further discussions.

The trading figures released show that the board paid a total of $78.9m for 12|m lambs, or 48 per cent of the 1971-72 season’s total lamb kill.

It spent $31.9m to ship and market these lambs, and realisations totalled $106.5m, of which $94.5m was from sales to the United Kingdom.

Stocks of lamb on hand on September 30 were equivalent to about 1.5 m carcases, of an estimated f.o.b. value of $10.5m. The sale of these remaining stocks is expected to yield an additional small 'profit.