THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1865, 19 August 1887, Page 11

THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

The position of the meat freezing industry is not so satisfactory as we could wish it to be. The continual low prices at Home are unaccountable unless some of the shipments have been of a quality which has generally depreciated Uie value of frozen mutton in the eyes of the consumers. That has not been the case as far as shipments frem Otago are concerned, but we are not so sure about other parts of the Colony. In the course of the address of Mr John Roberts, chairman of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, a t then" recent annual meeting, it transpired that, the net returns of the entire shipments of the Company for the past year, exclusive of skins and fat, had only been Id per lb ; or inclusive of these items, an average of 8s Gd per head of sheep. And this result was only obtained by the reduction of freight to l^d v>ei lb- I n o^her parts of the Colony If d per lb was paid for freight, and the results in these cases must have been correspondingly worse. But for the timely a /lvent of another line of cargo steamers, it, is probable that nothing less than If d per lb would have been accepted. Now a second line of less speed cargo boats has been started, and there is some hope that a further reduction may yet be made. Th c fret is the trade as now carried on is a great deal more profitable to the freights than to the farmer. From a calculation we have made, based on the weights of the local Company and the same proportion of lambs to sheep sent, even at L}d per lb the freight on the shipments of last year (727,639 carcasses at 601b each) would amount, with 10 percent, primage, to £300,000. It is possible that more lambs were sent from other parts of the Colony than from here but as against this there is the £d extra freight, so that we do not think the above estimate is far from the mark. The local Company alone has paid over £40,000 in freights. This is an enormous sum to be contributed by one not very flourishing industry for the maintenance of lines of steamers from which the farmers and sheepowners get very little other benefit. The trade is now in such a position that if some concessions are not made the exaction of such freights will have the effect of " killing the goose that lays " the golden eggs." It is true that but for these large shipments of frozen mutton relieving the local markets the general scale of prices at the yards would have been far lower; but it is also true that there is no margin for profit to the grower of mutton at a penny a ponnd. It seems that the agency of the Messrs Nelson has not been so satisfactory as was hoped, and there lias been a large and unexplained loss in weight- on shipments last year. Another agency is now being tried ; and if we are to believe a recent cablegram, the indefatigable J. 0. Brown has a distributing company all but formed, from which some good may result. Too much depends on the trade to permit of our becoming too suddenly disheartened' by a few checks, and if only a halfpenny per pound more could be got for the meat there would be a margin. Surely this is not too much to hope for. As to the weight of carcasses shipped from Otago there lias been a remarkable improvement during the year, from an average of 541b to an average of GOlb, which seems to indicate that though we cannot keep up the standard of the first shipments we have still plenty of the right class of sheep. Although the Refrigerating Company were only able to pay a dividend of 7 per cent, this year as against 10 per cent, kist year, besides writing oft' £500 for depreciation on the Oamaru plant they have paid no less than £2110 for repairs and improvements at Burnside and Oamaru, and they were under the disadvantage during the earlier part of the year of having the works kept idle while they were resisting the demand of the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company for lsd per lb freight. That the Company is determined to keep the works up to all possible requirements is proved by the fact that they have erected two new freezing machine,, one at Burnside and one at Oamaru, which duplicates their freezing power, and have nNo added to their shed accommodation. If their present year's operations are as successful as they ought to be, shippers may hope for some reduction in charges. The net increase in shipments for the year was 120,756 carcasses, of which Canterbury contiibutcd 52.777, Otago 28,296, Wellington IGJSIS, and Hawke's Bay 3000; while Auckland shows a decrease of 9500. Otago contributed about one-seventh of the whole supply. The trade at this end has developed wonderfully. The state of affairs in London, however, is far from satisfactory, and all efforts to overcome the butchers' monopoly seem to have been so far unsuccessful.