Closing of some meat works predicted

Press, 10 December 1984, Page 2

Closing of some meat works predicted

PA Auckland Some freezing works will close as a result of a study on the rationalisation of the meat industry, says the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle. He did not say which works would close. Mr Moyle told the annual meeting of the Co-operative Wool Marketing Association in Auckland that there would soon be some quite startling developments in the meat industry. He said he was sure that there would be amalgamations to produce relatively few company groupings. Mr Moyle said that there was already much talk and negotiations on such subjects behind closed company doors.

It is hoped that the recommendations of a Meat Industry Council study on the reorganisation of the

meat industry will be available in late January or early February. Mr Moyle said the “name of the game” in improving the economic performance of meat works was throughput of livestock. “You have got to see the introduction of shift work into the industry. These are traumatic changes,” he said. He also suggested that efforts would be made to use plants for 120 to 130 days a year, rather than the 100 to 105 days that was traditional.

Mr Moyle said that in the area of further processing meat into consumer packs some excellent processing plants were now negotiating for shift work.

They knew that, if they could get two shifts worked in a plant they would reduce by a third the cost of each unit processed.