‘Difficult trading for meat’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33664, 14 October 1974, Page 18

‘Difficult trading for meat’

“It seems we are in for a few months of very difficult trading for meat,” said Mr D. Morten, general manager of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Ltd, yesterday. But in the longer term, he is optimistic about prospects for meat, particularly beef.

i Mr Morten has jusl ; returned from a visit to thf ■ United States, Europe • Japan, and Australia. ■ He thinks it unlikely thal there will be any significant : increase in prices until well ■ into the next northern hemi- ’ sphere summer. ; In Britain, he said, a lamt ■ kill was expected 500,00( ( higher than normal, and s i big beef kill. It also looker i as though the American bee: ; kill would be reasonablj i high, and that the Australiar ■ kill would be high. 11 These factors, plus a lac! • •of demand and monetarj |'problems in the world, coulc ijonly mean that market: :would be unlikely to im .prove in the next fev ;; months. I Nor could he see mud [Japanese interest in muttoi ['for probably the next five oi [(six months. Japan had financial prob- ' lems and was “full of meat’ — she had beef in store, big stocks of fish, and some mutton she had bought hat not yet been shipped. Discussing prospects for by-products, edible and inedible, Mr Morten said he could not see any spectacular success. He hoped that prices for casings, pelts, and tallow would remain reasonable, but he could only be pessimistic about wool. But in the long term, said Mr Morten, he still believed . that prospects for meat, anc ;particularly beef, were good. The anticipated big kill' lin the United States and the I United Kingdom this yeai were going to. “get into’ capital stock to some extent which must reduce killings in 15 months time and further ahead, he said. Genuinf red meat shortages coulc then be seen again. Factors in the situatior applying to wool, said Mi

Morten, were the competition of synthetics, the ability of manufacturers to order synthetics knowing that they could get a standard product, and the lack of need to place orders far ahead, without high interest rates on stocks.

Some • people, too, had become disenchanted with wool because of the high prices last year and highly fluctuating prices, particularly people in the United States.