It Happened To-day. FROZEN MEAT SHIPMENT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 121, 15 February 1935, Page 9

It Happened To-day. FROZEN MEAT SHIPMENT

On February 15, 1882, the first trial shipment, of frozen meat left New .Zealand for Loudon. < f The preserving of meat by storing in low and even temperatures was a scientific invention that was almost equivalent to bringing New Zealand within 1 a short distance of its markets. To the commercial application of that scientific invention must be given a, large share of the credit for rescuing this country from the almost hopeless position in which the extravagance of the Vogel boom had landed it in the ’7o’s. In November, 1873, the first successful shipment of frozen beef and mutton was sent from Sydney to London in the Strathleven. The great landowners who .were responsible for the first trial shipments of frozen produce were sheep-farmers, and their efforts were naturally directed toward finding a market for tlfeir surplus sheep and lambs. In New Zealand the credit for taking the first steps to establish a trade in frozen produce must be given to Mr. Davidson, the general manager of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, one of the absentee companies which owned large areas of land both in Australia and New Zealand. After investigating the various processes then in operation, he persuaded his directors to advance £lOOO for a trial shipment from New Zealand. The company’s manager in New Zealand, Mr. Thomas Brydone, used the greatest care in selecting, killing arid preparing the-carcases; the meat was loaded aboard the s.s. Dunedin at Port Chalmers, and under, the painstaking care of Captain Whitson the cargo was transhipped without mishap. The shipment was a complete success, and a new industry had been launched. No time was lost in following up the success gained. Before the Dunedin left on the trial voyage, three companies hat}''heen formed to erect freezing works —in Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington.

• In the year 1882 the export of frozen meat had been valued at .only £lO,OOO. Now it is getting well on toward the £10,000,000 mark.