EXPORT PORK TRADE

Manawatu Times, Volume LII, Issue 3576, 6 April 1927, Page 5

EXPORT PORK TRADE

READY MARKET AT HOME GOOD POSSIBILITIES. Although during the last decade the New Zealand producer had awakened to the fact that England offers.a -ready market for htia Dominion’s surplus pork products, little has as yet been done to exploit it. The total value of New Zealand’s export of frozen pork into Great Britain during 1926 was £258,825, representing only about one half per cent, of that country’s total pork and bacon importations for the year. One pleasing feature about New Zealand pork export trade, however, is the fact that a slight increase is niticcable but only very trifling when compared with the Argentine figures for the last three years. In 1925 .New Zealand exported 40,300 cwt. of frozen pork, valued at £143,358, and in 1926 the'figures increased to 67,434 cwt., valued at £258,825. The Home figures show an overwhelming preponderance in favour of bacon, and it is on the bacon trade that New Zealand should concentrate per medium of frozen .pork. It is useless for New Zealand to export cured bacon, because it would land stale and mouldy. The New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board sent Home frozen pork to several of the biggest bacon-curers in Britain and Ireland for conversion into bacon. Tho firms defrosted the pork and cured it accordingly to tho tastes of tho locality. They were unanimous in- stating that the New Zealand bacon thus cured was superor to the best Danish, so that the idea of converting New Zealand frozen pork into bacon was quite sound. What New Zealand had to do to secure a bigger share in tho British bacon industry was to grow more pork of the right sizes and quality to meet the tastes of British consumers. Pig-rearing was commonly regarded as a national side-line to dairying, but if taken up more seriously and scientifically by farmers it was almost certain that the side-line would ultimately pay‘ even better than the main industry. Argentine evidently recognises that the frozen pork trade in Great Britain is worth striving for, as is shown by the following figures. In 1924 she exported 1,445 cwt. at a value of £4.916: in 1925 7.318 cwt. valued at £34.832; . and in 1926 86,052 cwt. valued at £371,625.