BRITISH MEAT TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1925, Page 7

BRITISH MEAT TRADE

SHORTAGE ARTIFICIAL

NEW ZEALAND CONTROL UNDER FIRE.

BEFORE FOOD COMMISSION.

(IJKITBD PRESS ASEOOUTIOH COPXRUBT.)

(UEUTER'S TEI,EOIUM.)

Received 6th February, 11 a.m.)

LONDON, sth February.

That economy and necessity, net choice, compelled British workers to buy imported meat was the contention o'; English and Scottish Co-operative Society butchery managers in evidence before the Food Commission to-day. All testified to the change in the popular, taste for meat.

-■ Mr. Hughes, secretary of the Co-op-erativo Retail Butchers' Association, whoso 41 societies in 670 shops did a. meat trade of 40,000,0001b annually, said that people no longer had cold meat dished up daily. They ate steaks and chops and small choice cuts, not the cheaper large boiling pieces as before the war. '■ This, coupled with the shortago of stock and the increased population, markedly affected prices, but he expressed the opinion that the shortage was artificially created by ,she operations of the control boards in the various producing countries. He instanced the case of New Zealand lamb, which had reached a price far beyoud the dreams of the. originator of the control system. _ Mr. Hughes urged a more extensive importation of Canadian cattle. Asked; if chilled and frozen meat were interchangeable in the trade, Mr. Hughes said that the Co-operative Societies did not handle frozen beef. They dealt in chilled and very little of tliat. He added that there was, a large trade'in JNew Zealand lamb and mutton. '' Sir Auckland Geddes (chairman) expressed great astonishment at a statement showing 18 per cent, profit on Canterbury lamb, assuming a price of Is a

Mr. Hughes said that the lamb was from New Zealand and labelled "Canterbury,'^ but he agreed to furnish furtner particulars. Sir Auckland Geddes said that the matter was important, as interchange of r£ eSisi of the bis^obiems