PRICE OF MEAT

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1917, Page 7

PRICE OF MEAT

ADVANCES ON FRESH-KILLED)

The wholesale .price-o£'meat «in Wel-B lington is about to be advanced —in some instances, the higher rates are already being paid by butchers. The rise is approximately |d per pound on wether.' mutton, id per pound on ewe mutton, and id per pound on beef. This latest revision of rates is attributed solely to the high prices ruling for stock all over the North Island and the reluctance of the farmers to 6ell except at substantial advances on recent market values. Since 1898 the rise in the wholesale price of wether mutton in this locality has been 400 per cent., comparing- ruling rates with 1* rates then. From July, 1914 —the month before the war —to July, 1917, mutton has risen Id to 2d per pound, 'i'he next rise will bring-it to-an advance of ljd to 2Jd or 3d. For the same period beof has risen 2d per pound. Already the local market has been supplied with frozen meat withdrawn from store, but it is complained by some in the trade that their customers do not take kindly to it, but insist on fresh. The advances above referred to are for fresh meat. The frozen New iZealand meat (before the war) was considered,excellent by British consumers, and is now eagerly taken at greatly-enhanced prices. But it is not popular here—if sold as frozen meat. Its quality, however, is identical with that demanded in the bestclass trade at Home. As the precedent | of drawing -from the stocks in freezing I stores in New Zealand has been established, the Government could, perhaps, release further supplies at Imperial rates, if the-local price of fresh-killed meat is found beyond the means of the average housekeeper. The British Food Controller's recent order with reference" to sale of' stock and profits on meat provides that a dealer Who has bought any fat cattle shall only ■sell the same to a person who undertakes to slaughter the beast. The permitted buyer is bound to give and com- ; ply with a written undertaking that the beast shall be slaughtered within four"teen days, such written undertaking, being entered in a book where the cattle are sold in-the market, and in other cases mad© on an authorised form, to be sent by the dealer to the market authority for the nearest cattle market. Cattle includes, in addition to cattle usually socalled, rams, ewes, wethers, lambs, and swine.

Part 11. of the order is designed to secure elimination of jobbing transactions in sales of dead meat. It is provided that any salesman—i.e., a person who has bought any dead meat—may sell the meat- only to a retail butcher or to ai consumer. A salesman selling a carcase, side, or quarter may only charge 3d astone- (81b) above the price at which ha bought, but he may charge a further Id, a stone if he cuts the carcase, side, or quarter into smaller joints. Meat importers can only charge Id a stone for carcases, etc., cut into joints above the price charged by them for carcases sold whole.

This order exeepts meat bought by the Board of Trade.