MEAT-PRESERVING COMPANY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2208, 18 January 1868, Page 2

MEAT-PRESERVING COMPANY.

(from the Argus, Jan, 1.)

A very [important enterprise was initiated on Monday last, when certain gentlemen determined to form themselves into a jointstock company for the purpose of "preserving and shipping fresh meat to Europe." The capital of the company is to be £50,000, and upwards of £4,000 of the amount was subscribed on the spot. This is a very auspicious beginning, and if the business-like promptitude which characterised the initiatory process is equally conspicuous in the management of the company's affairs, we have no doubt its operations will pro?e highly advantageous alike to stockowners in Australia and to meat-consumers in Europe. But something more must be evolved out of the current agitation on the great meat question. Before the subject is permitted to drop, other modes of turning our surplus stock to account must be devised, in addition to that which the new company propose to adopt. Their business will be to export fresh cooked meat, iu tins, and we have no doubt their product will be an excellent article of food, which, when it becomes known in Great Britain will command an extensive sale. But our annual surplus of four millions of sheep and lambs, besides cattle, cannot be disposed of by this process. Cooked meat will never become an article of general or extensive consumption in Great Britain. Wholesome and nourishing as it unquestionably is, it still lack*

something without which the palate at a highly carnivorous people will not be satisfled: and when introduced on shipboard, though at first it proves very acceptable as an agreeable change from salted meat, it soon fails to satisfy the alimentary cravings of the passengers. Tangible joints, even if somewhat tough and salt, are much more acceptable as dally food to the • average meat-eating Englishman, than the wholesome ani pleasant, but certainly vapid, contents of the soldered tins, Besides, John Bull has a rooted prejudice against anything in the shape of food which lie does not thoroughly understand. If he eats beef, he must know that it is beef, and not something that is probably the flesh of ox, but possibly the flesh of horse or mule. His eye must be satisfied as well as his palate, and that can only be when he has on his plate anatomical proof of the nature of the animal on which he feeds. He abhors " messes," and the best Australian tinned meat will come to be regarded by him as a « mess" if too often placed before him. There is, however, an excellent field for the operations of the new company. So vast are the alimentary requirements of Great Britain, that there is ample scope for the profitable employment of the new company's £50,000 in •supplying it with tinned meat, and for many other similar companies m addition. But other companies should also be formed at 'the tame time, to carry on some other of the many feasible schemes of meat-preserving that are now before the public. Not to •peak of straightforward curing by means of salt, which we have no doubt we shall fall back Upon to some extent by-and-by, there is the refrigerating process, combined boilingdown and salting, preservation by the application of bisulphate of lime, concentration, and some others, about which the public have ; lately heard a good deal. Most of these processes are worth trying, and since the company formed on Monday can occupy only a: small corner of the field now open, we hope to see other companies formed, before public attention becomes distracted by some more novel topic, to compete with the one .jusC initiated, in the preparation of tinned meat or in preserving meat for exportation by some other process. Mr Hughes lias done his part well. Let some other enterprising gentleman now come to the front, and start other companies, to deal in the same or some other way with this great meat question.