BACONER CARCASES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22469, 13 July 1936, Page 7

BACONER CARCASES

REPORTS OF BRUISING COMPLAINTS FROM LONDON [from our own correspondent] HAMILTON, Sunday Complaints that many baconer carcases have been delivered on the London market marred by bruising have been received by tho New Zealand Meat Producers' Board. All buyers of baconcr pigs have received a circular from the board, referring to the complaints. An extract from a letter written by a large firm of bacon curers to the London malinger of the board is as follows:—"We wish you would take up with great emphasis the difficulties we are experiencing this year owing to the fact that so many carcases reach us in a very badly bruised condition. This, of course, is done before the pigs are killed and means that unnecessary violence is used in driving them from the pens to the trolleys, or from the trolleys to the railway trucks. We have always had a certain proportion, and know that this cannot be avoided, but the quantity this year is far in excess of anything we have had to face previously and means a very substantial loss.

"Possibl.v the increased production of these pigs has meant greater slackness in handling and selection, which is and will be doing the trade much harm. As a consequence much of this meat has recently been sold freely at from 4s to 6s per cwt. below the prices of the cheapest Continental. Tf you could get greater care taken in the handling of these pigs before they are killed we imagine it would be to the benefit of the New Zealand producers as well as to the curers on this side. Unless this trouble is remedied promptly, the bacon trade for this home-cured New Zealand bacon will suffer a tremendous amount of harm in this country."