WHAKATU LAMB.

Gisborne Times, Volume LV, Issue 6202, 6 October 1921, Page 7

WHAKATU LAMB.

RETAILED IX ENGLAND AT 3-. LB. WHERE'S THE PROFITEER? A:rather startling statement, which comes first hand from an important provincial meat market in England, requires explanation as to wliat. profits the handler* of our mutton get. before the meat reaches the overridden British consumer. Mr C. H. Pickering, a well - known commercial traveller and poultry expert, who lias recently returned irom England, where, with his wife, lie had been visiting his home town, the centre of a large provincial district, in conversation with Mr M. J. Johnson, of Hastings, tells his story in simple terms. In order, he said, to impress tu> ir hosts with what the Dominion could turn out. his wife asked him to buy a leg of New Zealand frozen lamb, and in carrying out his commission he was amazed when the shopman told him the price would be 3s per lb. He told tnc salesman that he was a New ZealamiOr, and that he could not understand the figure being so high; so the assistant introduced him to the nroprielor of the establishment. Mr Pickering convinced the butcher that he was a New Zealander, and therefore interested, and the manager toofl NTi' Pickering to his office, where he produced his invoices showing that, tie had paid 2s Sd per lb himself, wholesale, so that, who ever made an excess profit be did not. Mr Pickering aslced if he could take away the tab attached to the carcase, to which the butcher consented, and it turned out to bear the imprint " Whakatu.*' Mr Pickering was dumbfounded when lie remembered that the New Zealand producer only realised nlxnit fid per lb, and he is marvelling who is jKicketing the difference between that modest figure and the 3s charged to the unfortunate English public—a profit of over 250 per cent. He very reasonably states. "'Glut of New Zealand meat on English market 1* Yes, how could it be otherwise at these absurd prices? Surely some of our heads are to blame. Someone ought to get the sack, and allow somebody to take their places who could put our lamb and mutton into the consumers’ hands at prices within the reach of an ordinary working man, and then surely the talk of ‘ glutted markets ’ would cease."