COLD STORAGE SPACE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21449, 13 September 1939, Page 3

COLD STORAGE SPACE

PROVISION IN DOMINION VALUE IN AN EMERGENCY In view of the possibility of war interfering with the shipment of meat from the Dominion to Great Britain, and the necessity to kill such animals as fat lambs and porkers when they are in suitable condition, the provision of extra cold storage space in our freezing works is exercising the minds of farmers. At the present time the normal available cool storage space is considerably reduced through the necessity to hold approximately a million carcases of mutton which, being in excess of our quota, the British Government will not accept from us. Further than this, the slaughter and chilling of beef was considerably restricted in some North Island districts last season through shortage of cool storage combined with inadequate shipping. So far as can be learned, however, no considerable additions to cool storage chambers for meat are oemg undertaken, and applications for the erection of new freezing works are said not to be receiving favourable consideration by the Government. While big supplies of phosphatic rock are being accumulated so that production from the land may be maintained in the event of interruptions of seaborne trade, it appears as if this longsighted policy would be useless unless cool storage for the meat it would produce is provided against a similar eventuality.