DEARER FAT STOCK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19106, 29 August 1936, Page 4

DEARER FAT STOCK

EFFECT ON MEAT PRICES POSITION IN GISBORNE NO FURTHER RISE VET No further advances have occurred in the retail price of meat in Gisborne recently, but. if the upward trend of fat stock values continues the butchers will have to pass the increases on to the public. “We are absorbing the rise ourselves in the meantime,” the head of one of the large establishments in Gisborne said to-day when discussing the matter, “but. we cannot do that indefinitely. If we have to pay much more for our supplies, there will be nothing for it but to pass it on to our customers, more especially now that we have to pay increased wages and observe shorter hours.”

Fat stock prices now are the highest in New Zealand for six or seven years. For the first time for a long time fat wethers sold above 30s at the Matawhero stock sale yesterday, one reaching 31s 6d. F'at ewes sold to 28s 6d, while at Hastings on Wednesday ewes for the butcher went as high as 355, about double the values of a year ago. Beef supplies are short. Butchers in Gisborne, are at present drawing on cattle which they purchased a month or so back, when prices were not quite so iiigii as they are now. Fat heifers are worth about £8 for prime sorts, and prime bullocks to about £l2. A shortage of fat stock exists throughout New Zealand, and Gisborne has been supplying Auckland with fat sheep and fat cattle during the past few months, small lots having gone north every week. These shipments have had the effect of hardening the prices of supplies remaining in Gisborne. However, the sheep shortage should end shortly, when the new season’s supplies become available.