TINNED DRIPPING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26917, 1 November 1948, Page 6

TINNED DRIPPING

INCLUSION IN FOOD PARCELS CONFLICTING REPORTS “ There is a demand for edible dripping in tins for parcels for Britain, but this has been frowned on because all fat is required for export,” said Mr W. Stevenson, of Irvine and Stevenson's St. George Co., Ltd., in a statement to the Daily Times. Mr Stevenson added that there was no difference between exporting the dripping in parcels and in any other way. The Price Tribunal had checked the parcel system, he maintained, by fixing a price about 5s a dozen tins under cost. Mr Stevenson said that his firm, for example, had been collecting butchers dripping, re-rendering it, and packing it in tins for export. A profit of less than one penny a tin was made. When the exchange rate altesed the firnl was stopped from exporting, in spite of the fact that the New Zealand Government had been collecting £2.500.000 a year for controlling fats. * “ The New Zealand Government said that our dripping was not wanted in small tins, while the department handding it for the British Government at the other end said it was wanted in these packages,” Mr'Stevenson went on. “We thought in our innocence that it would make little difference to us, that >if the Government said our dripping was not required for export, the Price Tribunal could not prevent us from selling it at a reasonable price on the New Zealand market.” > Mr Stevenson quoted a letter received from the Price Tribunal after an explanation was sought by the firm. The letter, he said, read: “The policy in terms of which local canned dripping prices are maintained at the 1941 level is a long-established one, and one that is well known to all canners and it would be unfair to authorise higher prices in your case."