FARM AND STATION. (Continued from page 7.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2360, 18 May 1899, Page 14

FARM AND STATION. (Continued from page 7.)

NEW ZEALAND MEAT TRADE. DEVELOPMENT IN THE PROVINCES. A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS (Fkom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 8. Since the beginning of the present year a development has taken place in the New Zealand meat retail trade that promises as much for the future of the industry as anything which has been done since the first carcase came from the colony to this country. From time to time efforts have been made to impress upon meat consumers here the superiority of New Zealand produce. But it has been uphill work. In the wholesale markets, of course, the colony's- produce" has been from the first sold fo,r what it really! was. The "middlemen" liad fullest knowledge, and, knowing the qualitj- of what he bought, paid a .higher price for it than for any other • refrigerated mutton ">r lamb that came to England. On the other hand, the actual consumer was in ignorance, and bought and paid for hard Argentine or Australian as '■ New Zealand," for so every ounce of frozen mutton exhibited in a retailer's shop came io be called. This formed a stupendous difficulty to overcome, for when once the meat was out of New Zealand hands an unscrupulous shopkeeper could do with it as he pleased. He could sell, by the hundred, carcases of sheep that had never been within thousands of miles of the colony, and call it "New Zealand," though he never vended a pound of the genuine article. If he were troubled with a little conscience, or, more likely still, had a suspicious customer or two, he might invest in a few "prime Canterbury" for the sake of the labels on them and make these do foi successions of supplies. Ido not say that every retailer of frozen meat has done this, yet 50 shops might be taken, one after the other, selling ostensibly nothing but "New Zealand" meat while receiving every week large quantities oi River Plate and Australian. • One of the best efforts to break this down in the x>ast was that made by Mi H. C. Cameron at Manchester. Here New Zealand meat sold as such, and boldly ad vertised, speedily secured recognition. As I told you, however, a week or two ago, since the shop was placed in other hands it has lost its distinctive character. Yel a further effort has now been made, and] I am glad to learn, with great success. In, this country, it should be remembered, there are three classes of meatgati&A — the jiopT t who cannot afford tc

t buy the best grade of any kind of food, I .J and to whom a penny or twopence a pound i means having >r going without ; the j upper class, whose buying is done by j servants, who, of course, must have the ] very best English ; then there is the great | middle class, who like good quality, "and j at the same time do not object to saving ' • threepence or fourpence per pound on ( their purchases. For the first-named sec- j tion, Argentine or Australian mutton ' serves and will serve ; to reach the second I 'is to attempt the almost unattainable ; ' ! the third is just the class to buy New ! Zealand produce. I Arguing, somewhat from this basis, the Christchurch Meat Company, through Mr Robert Galloway, have taken steps to open retail shops of the best description in the I provinces. In one large district they found j that the ground had been broken someI what. Last year Mr W. P. Reeves visited South Wales, and took occasion to say all I he possibly could in favour of the general consumption of New Zealand meat. Amongst those he impressed was Mr Woodley. of Messrs H. Williams and Co., of Cardiff, butchers, who had several shops in the district. He gave New Zealand lamb a trial, and though, in consequence of the lamentable coal strike, times were "j as bad as they were ever remembered to i have been in the locality, so great was the success achieved that he was completely converted. Prior to the trial he thought , the New Zealand Government should give ' a subsidy, and did not consider £150 a year enough: After a trial he was ready to extend the New Zealand meat section , of his business without a subsidy. Mr Galloway, for the Christchurch Meat 1 Company, has determined to open up trade |in the provinces, and Cardiff, with its ' | mining population teeming for miles 1 | around, appeared an excellent centre for 1 a start. Having determined upon this , ' centre, Mr Galloway and Mr WoodE ley went through the whole of " ' the West End of London to j find a model for a shop. There were ob- ' ! jections to many they saw, but at last, ' at Beckenham, they found just what they > sought. A shop on this model was there3 upon fitted up in Cardiff in the heart of 7 , one of the best residential districts ; and 5 ,- the venture has proved the project to be r so well advised and devised that Mr GalloT way intends opening similar depots in 3 other large provincial towns on the same , plan. Being in South Wales recently, and s knowing Mr Galloway was to be there too, f I took the opportunity of calling on Mr Woodley just when business was in full s swing. Certainly the shop is one of the r • most attractive I have seen — far different r , from the dirty, sloppy places in which - ! frozen- .meat is too frequently exposed for s sale. The front of the shop and meat , slabs are all of white marble, the interior s walls being covered with glazed tiles, t brown, to about 4ft from the floor, and , white upwards to the ceiling, with the exception of four pictures, burnt into the - tiles, and descriptive of pastoral life. The - whole of the rear wall of the shop is taken > up, with a large glazed sigu^ "Prime

Canterbury Mutton and Lamb ; Eclipse Brand." By arrangement, no other mutton or lamb is sold in the establishment.

When I called the shop was full of meat — "Eclipse' mutton and Chicago chilled beef, and English pork and .veal. I inquired the reason for this, and. Mr Woodley informed 'me that the Chicago beef, being mostly corn-fed, was most suitable for the class of trade he wanted to attract for the " Eclipse " mutton and lamb, while it was necessary to keep all other kinds of meat to prevent "his customers going elsewhere if they " wanted it. The point seems a strong one — £?ell the customer New.' Zealand meat if he wants it. If- not, supply him with what he does want ; he is sure to require mutton and lamb in turn.

Asked as to whether he was satisfied with the venture, Mr Woodley assured me that that was a mild term to use. Though the premises had been opened but eight weeks, his custom was firml) r established ; he charged, he said, the best prices of any shop in the town — 8d for hindquarters of lamb and 6d for forequartei-s^ 6d for hindquarters of mutton and 5d for forequarters ; for legs, 6£d ; for loins and shoulders. 6d ; for necks, 4£d ; and for breasts, 3d per lb. This is certainly about ;i maximum retail price, and yet Mr Woodley informed me he could hardly keep pace with the trade. One gratifying thing is that he has 14 or 15 medical men now regularly on his books ; and while I was in the shop orders for the best-class people were being executed as rapidly as a pretty large .staff could manage it.

Great are (he uses of advertisement, " was Mr Woodley's contention, and with the aid of an attractive shop, striking newspaper advertisements, and plenty of literature supplied him by the Christchurch Meat Company, he holds that the right way of pushing New Zealand meat has been hit upon. And he has practice to support his contention, for though when I called in the afternoon the shop was full of meat, by the early evening it was completely empty.

Mr Galloway concedes that he has been fortunate in .securing .such a man as Mr Woodley to control the initial venture. He has become, as may be gathered, a warm enthusiast for New Zealand mutton and lamb, and his experience has enabled him to put that enthusiasm to paying uses _ urther, he has been able to overcome a serious lifficulty, — the getting rid of the coarser joints, such as necks and , breasts. To the new shop which I have described the upper middle class, almost solely, has been attracted. Now, such only want the prime joints, and there would be los>s over the less wanted joints had not Messis H. Williams and Co. inferior grade shops, by means of which the rougher portions ji the carcases can be worked off. It would thus appear that the wise course in future development must prove to be to have two shops under the one retail control — the high grade for the ~primest . quality and best customers, and a second or third grade place whara in-

ferior qualities form the staple of the trade, and thus allow no waste.

Probably this will be the line which future development in frozen meat retailing will run, though strong opinion is not wanting that the best course will be for New Zealanders to keep a monopoly of their, own trade here.

Be this as it may, the step forward taken by the Christchurch Meat Company promises to turn out a good thing for the "Eclipse" brand especially, and for New Zealand produce generally. As it is, there is more than a demand for every ounce of mutton and lamb New Zealand can send here. Already consignments mount up to over three million carcases a year. Beyond question over six million carcases are sold as "New Zealand." By the action of the Christchurch Meat Company people will now be able to get what they want with the certainty of not being defrauded, and New Zealand producers generally will benefit. And the benefit will progress with equal steps as Mr Galloway succeeds in opening, in other provincial centres, shops on the plan he has so successfully inaugurated in South Wales.