THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1935 THE DOMINIONS' RIVAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22086, 16 April 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1935 THE DOMINIONS' RIVAL

An exposition of the Argentine point of view regarding restrictions on meat imports into Great Britain has been given by Sir James Caird, chairman of the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Company. It deserves respectful attention in all the Dominions for a number of reasons. Argentina is their greatest rival in the British market, predominant in chilled beef, and not to be despised as 8. supplier of mutton and lamb. To •study the market is elementary wisdom for a country like New Zea land, so much dependent on the one purchaser for the pastoral products on which the economic health of the country so largely depends. To study important competitors is hardly less necessary. The success of Argentina in the market for imported beef calls for analysis, not only because of this country's ambition to become a supplier with the aid of the chilling process, but because the principles to be discovered may well be applied to the production and marketing of other goods. The head of the Smithfielcl and Argentine Company should speak with authority. That great enterprise has been established in Argentina since 1904. It has at Zarate a plant capable of handling 2000 head of cattle and 5000 sheep in a working day of eight hours. Though not absolutely the largest, it is one of the three largest freezing works operating in the Bepublic. Consequently those directing it can be expected to know intimately the conditions by which success or failure in the British market are determined. The company's stake in the business is too great and too important for it to be conducted by guesswork. The pronouncements of the man at its head demand respect, for they are

founded on certain knowledge. S:ir James Caird suggests that the future of the Argentine beef trade is secure so long as the producers continue to supply an article suited exactly to the tastes of the British consumer. Their ability to do so he attributes to their experience obtained by 40 years of intensive and expensive effort. The statement is absolutely in tune with advice given to New Zealand producers. Dairy farmers, and sheep farmers concerned in the fat lamb trade, have been told that their chief safeguard against a difficult present and an uncertain future is the attainment and maintenance of the highest possible quality. Lord Bledisloe, while in New Zealand, was among the most vigorous exponents of this theory. But the argument needs to be taken a stage further. In foodstuffs there can be no absolute or abstract standard of quality. There may be of purity, in the sense of freedom from adulterants or harmful preservatives, or, in the case of meat, freedom from any evidence of disease in the stock before slaughter. Those elements of quality are essential, but there are other factors which depend upon the tastes and preferences of the consumer. Sir James Caird makes the supreme test of quality that of supplying exactly what the consuming public wants. He is right, doubly right, in a fiercely competitive market. Where a supplier holds a monopoly he may set about educating his public to like what he has to offer, instead of adapting his article.to suit the existing taste. If he tries to do the latter, holding anything less than a monopoly, he may speedily educate the public into patronising his competitors. Argentina will make no such mistake, according to Sir James Caird. Evidence of past policy supports him. The British consumer prefers fat beef. For years past the primest of fat cattle have been seni, chilled, to England. The Continental buyer likes a leaner joint. Second grade cattle are therefore reserved for the European market, which takes frozen beef. This represents studying the market in an elementary but essential way. '

Attention to detail has been another factor by which Argentina has won favour in the British market. As long ago as 1925 the Imperial Economic Committee, reporting on the meat trade, emphasised the manner in which the Argentine producer catered for the exact tastes of the buyer. There was, it remarked, an ever-growing demand for smaller joints, which meant that the market required carcases from stocky, thick-set animals, of beef conformation, from two to three years old. After describing the breeding and fattening systems in Argentina,' the report added: "Thus the South American is in a position to maintain a continuous supply of uniformly graded carcases of the age, type and finish which best satisfy the requirements of the United Kingdom market." Now, ten years later, I Sir James Caird makes the same

claim on behalf of Argentina, and predicts that these qualities in the product will retain the patronage of the buyer. They certainly will, unless competitors can produce an article of equal quality, equally suited to the taste of the public, and do it on competitive terms. They will need to match the patience, thoroughness and enterprise of those who built up the industry in South America. If New Zealand has any serious ambition to figure in the chilled beef market, these points will have to be thoroughly appreciated and applied. But the lesson is not only for the would-be producers of beef. Those concerned in all other kinds of foodstuffs destined for the United Kingdom would do well to note again the twin principles underlying Sir James Caird's remarks—that the highest attainable quality is the producer's best asset if there is to be a struggle for the market, and that, in the ultimate, the consumer's preference determines what is the highest quality.