WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 February 1930, Page 2

WELLINGTON NEWS

QUICK FllEEZlp OF MEAT.

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, February. 13. One of the, subjects that dominated the attention of .the annual convention of the Institute of'Anierican .Me'atpac'kers held in Chicago recently was that of the development of. quick : freezing •which enables .the packing of . fresh

meat to be done at the plant ready lor summer distribution. , . >This development together -. with the ■, adpotionof a code of trade practices, 'it w,os thought would revolutionise > present methods of preparation-.of meat and meat products in the IKS.: The Chairman in his opening address to the convention, referred to the coming of quick freezing aiul . the. detailed report of an interstate ;: committee; which had visited ,a. freezing plant and had meat cuts frozen and. shipped.-.hack to Chicago; ! .'‘The implications of the report were encouraging as to the possibility of - freezing quickly and .satis-. ifactorilyCsm'ajl cuts of meat without damaging thrift- quality. Several packers hail.-since. put out small packages and wrappings of frozen meat; If this . vehture proved to be a practicable ’routine its. possibilities were of course very significant. It transfer-red-the retail cutting and ] wrapping operations from the the store to the manufactory and made possible new channels for distributing meat retail. It also made it possible to package meat attractively to a greater extent than ever before Whether preserved quality in the broadest sense of the term and made possible an appealing product at a price the consumer was willing- to pay,: ; he; did not'know; byt ' he believed that if the experiments proved successful in a large way the merihandisng effects woi‘jd be vei.> significant in more ways than those he had mentioned. The discussion at the convention subsequently held attracted attention in London where the suggestion has been made, that.;, here it ; would appear is a method that would place on the market Australian meat that would he to all intents and purposes fresh meat, and that meat would be sold m the modern wrappedyand packed . form with all its possibilities for publicity. The suggestion ' was made, knowing the difficulties such a procedure would have to overcome, but' such new developments have • occurred .in the TJ.S., where’during the'past five years the consumers situated many hundreds ,pf miles from the sea coast received 'fil-. litedi fish that had been frozen,,,, and wrapped in conventional- packages at the plant.. That change was dictated by modern trends inthe selling of foodstuffs, the immense distance i'rptn production to distribution' points arid the "full use made Of the waste fish products at the factory