RETAIL MEAT PRICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24448, 6 November 1940, Page 5

RETAIL MEAT PRICES

I ,NO REDUCTION LOCALLY WINTER INCREASES NOT MADE PUBLIC HAS REAPED BENEFIT Housewives in Dunedin will find, •almost without exception, that their butchers have not allowed them the halfpenny per lb reduction in retail prices sanctioned late last month by the Minister of Supply, Mr D. G. Sullivan. Beef and mutton rates generally will remain on the basis as hitherto, because in most cases they are substantially lower than the basic prices set for the South Island in March, and also because the permissive increases of a halfpenny per lb in July and Id per lb in August were not passed on to consumers bv the butchers. March was the month when the Government decided to fix prices from July 1 to November 1 to give farmers an adequate return for the increased winter fattening costs for beef. This was followed by the granting of three monthly increases of a halfpenny per lb. Although no official announcement was made, the Government, taking the Christchurch figures as a parity, went a step further by fixing retail prices for the South Island for both beef and mutton. , It sanctioned the addition of these monthly increases to the fixed basic rates It also permitted the deduction of the latest halfpenny reductions from this aggregate of prices plus increases, with the intention of making a graduated rising scale recompensing farmers for the extra fattening costs during the winter, and then a similar lowering scale as the summer arrived.

But since mea,. prices in Dunedin were lower than the basic rates at the time increases were made permissive, and these increases were not added, local butchers are disregarding the decreases. It is obvious that over the winter months the Dunedin public has been' buying comparatively cheap meat, since had the butchers desired to do so they were fully entitled te charge more than they did—up to, in fact, the total of the basic prices (which were at, no time exceeded), plus the increases.