PORK AND BACON

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

PORK AND BACON

Values Remain Steady

Schedule prices for pork and bacon are unaltered on last month’s highest rates, which is in agreement with the Home market. Baconers, at 6d. a lb., Smithfield, are holding to November values. That price is, however, o-Bd. a lb. below a year ago. Adding exchange reduces the return by id. a lb., which means 9/- on an average baconer here. Pork, on the contrary, is selling wonderfully well at 7id. a lb. at Home. This is up jd. on November, and has been beaten only once in the past 12 months; that was in late January, when 7 5-Bd. was recorded. Export killings are down, on combined weights of porkers and baconers, by no less than 18 per cent, for October-No-vember this year, compared with last. •That is fully double the butterfat reduction. If we are not careful, we shall be losing some of our quota. r\. feature of these returns is the swing to bacon, for baconers exceed porkers in number by 14,000 carcases, reversing last year's tallies for the same months by 15,000. Then pork was 1000 ahead. New Zealand seems definitely short of pigs.

November killings were 34,500 baconers to 24,000 porkers. There are considerable unshipped stocks of pig meats in the Dominion, particularly of baconers. These are uot, however, unduly high. ' Prospects appear bright for pig producers.