MEAT PRICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26842, 5 August 1948, Page 6

MEAT PRICES

ANOMALOUS POSITION

BUTCHERS HANDICAPPED STOCK BEING WITHHELD P.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 4. Anticipating higher prices for meat under the new season’s schedule, producers were already demanding more for store and fat stock, and if prices continued to rise, or supplies of fresh meat were withheld, master butchers would be forced to trade in frozen meat, said Mr A. T. B. Green, secretary of the New Zealand Master Butchers’ Federation.

Mr Green said that the early release of information on the meat price increases recently negotiated between New Zealand and the United Kingdom Governments had reacted to the disadvantage of the retail meat industry m its purchase of meat supplies, both wholesale and on the hoof. Increases in the export schedule had not yet been authorised, but live stock market prices had very definitely reflected the increase in the overseas value of export meats. Any possible increase in the export schedule would not be made until October, said Mr Green. It was realised that the breeder-producer of store stock would not gam the advantage of the increased export schedule prices until the following store stock sale season in 1949, but it was questionable whether the recovery of price by stock producers in anticipation of price increases was justifiable when compared, for instance, with the position of manufacturers or retailers who were compelled by law to quit all “ old season’s stock at the price ruling for that period.

This latter condition certainly applied to meat retailers, as they were faced with the problem of purchase on rapidly-advancing markets, but had no prospect of. adjustment of' the retail price until the export schedule rates for the coming season had been announced. Such a condition was most certainly purchase at the “ new season’s increased values,’’ and sale at the “ old season’s prices." The master butchers, through their national federation, could not make application to the Price Tribunal for a comparative adjustment of retail prices until the export schedule was known, and the premature publicity given to the information relating to increased values of meat on overseas markets was to be regretted as being the reason for the serious disturbance of the price of live stock for local meat supply.