BACON INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 29, 3 August 1926, Page 12

BACON INDUSTRY

N.Z. SHOULD ENTER MARKET

EXPERIENCES IN DENMAEK,

The hopo that New Zealand would be able to increase her export bacon business was expressed by the president of the New Zealand Farmers' Union (Mr. W; J. Poison) in. his opening address at the annual conference to-day.

"An important adjunct to dairy farming which has never been satisfactorily developed in New Zealand is pig raising, which has reached enormous figures in Denmark," stated Mr. Polson. "From information given me by many representative iarmers in various parts of Denmark, and cheeked by the co-operatives I visited, from 12 to 16 pigs are fattened for • every cow milked. These pigs are housed in good concreto pens of modern and sanitary construction, kept clean, dry, arid warm, and marketed at 1551b weight six mouths from birth. The young pigs are all graded and kept in pens of ten and a dozen, all the pigs in the pen being of uniform size so that the strong get no advantage over the weak. The main essential is dry, clean quarters. The breed is generally the Danish pig, not unlike the Yorkshire in appearance, but a much hardier pig than any other variety as tried in Denmark. Pigs are railed tl> one or other of the various co-operative and proprietary factories, and are never more than four or five hours in the trucks. This is regarded as long enough. Eighty -five, per cent, of the pigs are handled by the co-op-erative dairies, and 15 per cent, by private companies. Tho Estjberg Cooperativo alone has 15,000 suppliers and deals with 250,000 pigs a year, of which only 2 per cent, aro condemned for disease.

"The price bacon was realising in May last, in Denmark, was 2.50 kronen per kilo, or something better than Is 3d per Ib. The cost of putting tho bacon on the. London market was l}d per Ib, and tho grower was getting better than Is for it. This is regarded as a highly satisfactory price. The top price pigs are those weighihg from 128 to 1551b, heavier and lighter weights being lower for the first 101b, but down ,to ljd lowor for pigs beyond those limits.

"The pigs are sent in by the cooperative societies whenever they arc ready, and are slaughtered at the factories where the heads are removed and the hams and sides salted and' cured in the half pig. There is daily shipping to London and frequent shipping to the other ports, so-that the supply is regnlar. As pigs are fattened all the year round, roots and corn being added to their skim milk to form their, diet, the customer can always depend upon the supply.

"The Danish experts to whom I spoke 1 seemed to think that we would do better to send salted and cured bacon in suitable cold storage temperatures from New Zealand than to try the market" with frozen pork. At the time I left Denmark there did not appear to be much demand for pork , t on the English market.

"I have hopes that we may be able to increase, our export bacon business. Tho Danes, by their sanitary methods (which are well understood by our authorities), their selection of a hardy type of bacon pig, an"d their care to prevent long haulage to the killing factories, are able to reduce their proportion of condemned pigs to a bagatelle. There ia no reason why we should not do the same. They place mild cured bacon of a familiar kind on the London market/ and as tho result of information obtained in Denmark I am hopeful that we will be able to attempt it. At all events, Sir William Hardy, the head of the Government Cold Storage Experimental Station at Camberley, to whom at the instigation of Sir James Allen I submitted the question, expressed the opinion that it could be carried out and promised to have the necessary experimental investigation made. Mr. Forsyth, the Meat Board's indefatigable representative in London, is also moving in the matter. Sir James Allen, than whom New Zealand has had no-more loyal or devoted Bervaut, has also interested the High Commissioner's Office. In any case, if we arc ever to succeed in establishing a New Zealand brand on the English pork market an assured and steady supply is essential." .