The Meat Export Trade.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 146, 26 November 1895, Page 2

The Meat Export Trade.

Christchurch, November 21. Mr John Holmes, who has just returned after a long visit to Great Britain and who spent a considerable amount of time enquiring as to tie disposal of New Zealand produce in Englai.d, expressed the opinion, in the course of an interview, that the frozen meat trade was very badly managed. If, he said, the management was good, Canterbury mutkn should be 6d or 7d per lb. At present the butchers who professed to make a trade in New Zealand meat bought few carcases of New Zealand, and many inferior sorts, River Plate or Australian. The New Zealand newlythawed was sold as English ; those not sold when freshly thawed became black through the serum of the blood running out, and leaving the solid constituents to coaguate into a dark colored stuff of the moet forbidding appearance. These were then sold as New Zealand, and so were those from Australia and River Plate. Two questions, Mr Holmes said, must be solved' before the trade ootid be made a success —one in regard to the defrostiug of meat, and the other that of disposing of it by people under some obligation to sell it as New Zealand. Nelson Bros.' system of defrosting was undoubtedly a great improvement on the ordinary plan, but could be carried out only to a limited extent. At present frozen meat was used only by the middle classes ; working people would not look at it. To overcome this prejudice he thought the Govern--ment, or those interested in the trade should give free dinners, to which representative working men should be invited. He had been assured by butchers that the meat was now not so good as it was some years ago, being too young. Prime 4-tooth wether was much better suited to the .London market than prime 2-tooth.