N.Z. MEAT EXPORTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19695, 29 July 1938, Page 13

N.Z. MEAT EXPORTS

REGULATING SHIPMENTS DIFFICULT YEAR PASSED SEVERE TEST FOR HOARD (Special to the Herald.) WELLINGTON, last night. The unusually dry summer experienced in most districts caused killings to be very heavy in the early part ol' the season, and severely tested the Meat Board’s capacity for regulating shipments. The board’s annual report gives the following contrast between the past season's figures and those of 193(1-37, the figures representing all classes of meat in (101 b. freight carcases: — Difi’er-

“It will be seen,” the report adds, “that up to March 31, our killing figures were 070,899 freight carcases ahead of the previous season. The rush of stock into the works in the early months of the year caused some congestion in a number of freezing works stores, and special shipping relief had to be arranged in order that these works should be enabled to continue killing. Regulating Difficult “It will be appreciated that this position made the work of the board in regulating shipments this season exceedingly difficult. The capacity of the market to absorb the total volume of supplies likely to be available in England at any given time has to be carefully gauged. To allow excessive supplies to go forward to the market without doubt would be detrimental to the prices received for our produce. At the same time, if freezing works stores were allowed to become seriously congested, the works would be unable to continue killing, and this would be a serious matter for producers. “A season such as the one. just experienced severely tests out the refrigerated storage capacity of freezing works. It also tests out the board’s machinery in its work of spreading shipments to feed the market. That it can claim success in this work is shown by the fact that at no time during the year has there been an excess of New Zealand lamb supplies in store in the United Kingdom, and the course of market prices has remained very steady. This result has been achieved in the face of an exceptionally heavy kill of lambs in the early months of the season. “In arranging shipping tonnage, the distribution of supplies over as wide a geographical area as possible in Great Britain has to be given careful consideration. Whilst London remains the greatest consuming area, great care must be exercised to avoid overloading this market, and to cater for the requirements of other centres having regard to their capacity. The following table shows our meat shipments to the West of England ports and Glasgow over a period of years:— Freight Carcases 1928- 932,954 1929- 1,090,307 1930- 1,424,185 1931- 1,802,081 1932- 2,209,011 1933- 2,229,759 1934- 2,201,240 1935- 2,039.289 1930-37 2,347,092 1 1937-38* 1,405,383 i *Eight months to May 31. i

To 1937-38 1930-37 cnce Nov. 30 759,293 013,929 145,304 Dec. 31 1,755,122 1,500,983 194.139 Jan. 31 3,551,424 3,030,302 521,122 Feb. 28 5,174,180 4,009,859 504,321 Mch. 31 0,963,733 0,292,834 070.899 Apr. 30 8,108,544 7,775,343 333,201 May 31 9,114,802 8,927,971 186,891