THE BACON INDUSTRY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7388, 14 February 1902, Page 4

THE BACON INDUSTRY.

HOW CO-OPERATION IS FAILING.

OVEB-SEA MARKETS NECESSARY.

(Palmerston Correspondent New Zea-

land Timea.)

The position of the hog industry is little short of remarkable. With tho impetus given the business by the establishment of the North Island Bacon Company, co-operative bacon companies sprang up in all parts of the southern end of the North Island. It was evidently thought by dairy farmers that the same conditions applied to bacon curing as to the factory manufacture of butter, but they Boon discovered their mistake. With cooperative butter making a system had been established and developed by the dairying service of the Government (seldom appreciated as it should be) which placed the colony's produce on a level with that of the greatest dairying countries of the world. Eefrigeration had brought the London market to the colonial butter-maker, and London produce agents had immediately dealt with him in a most magnanimous spirit, in fact treated New Zealand dairymen with a liberality never before heard of in the history of colonial trade. This most satisfactory condition of things still continues, with the result that dairymen have come to regard all traders as suppliants for their wares. In instituting the bacon industry no doubt they anticipated the same treatment. The State, however, allowed the hog producer some independence, with the most disastrous results. At each of the co-operative bacon works a different system of manufacture was instituted, and none I was strong enough to reject inferior stock or to exploit an over-sea market. The consequence was that irregular and often inferior quality bacon flooded local markets till stocks were left on the hands of the companies, crowding the store-rooms till tho works had to be shut down in the very height of the season. Isolated attempts were made to cater for Australian markets, but the irregular and inferior quality resulted in a loss to the shippers.

At the present time, a fairly busy season of the year, two Taranaki bacon factories are full of bacon, for which they cannot find a sale, and are closed down. Another side of the picture is afforded by the experience of the North Island Bacon Company. This concern, established under the controlling influence of tho Christchiirch Meat Company, aud conducted from its inception on the scientific lines which have made the mutton of the Canterbury Company famous, immediately introduced high-class New Zealand pig products, with the most satisfactory results, to the London and Australian markets. The bacon was uniform and of fine quality, hence its success. True, the North Island Company failed to ob'ain sufficient raw product of the quality demanded by the London trade from its own shareholders, and has been forced to recognise itself as a joint stock company. Now, however, with a fair field and no favour the company will be able to develop the bacon trade of the colony to the advantage of both consumer and itself. The success of the bacon industry depends upon concentration in the work of manufacture to a much greater extent than does the manufacture of butter, and it is because of the recognition of this rule that the North Island Company has been unable to meet in such a conspicuously successful manner the requirements of the London trade. Isolated effort can never attaiu the same results, and the e«tabHsbment of so many small co-operative bacon factories is therefore much to be regretted. The only means of establishing the business successfully is by emulating the beat meat companies in the rejection of inferior quality meat and careful grading. Otherwise the result must be disastrous, not only to the producer, but also to the colony and its produce trade.

[We do rot think this represents the position fairly in Taranaki where at least one co-operative company is as strict in its rejection of inferior pigs as any proprietary concern could be. — Ed. Stab. |