CHILLED BEEF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 179, 1 August 1933, Page 8

CHILLED BEEF

AUSTRALIA TO ACT. NEW ZEALAND EXPERIMENT. SYDNEY, July 20. In foreshadowing aetjon. by the Federal Government to assist the establishment of the chilled beef trade, Ministers have made special reference to the experimental shipment by New Zealand in the Port Fairy. This was due to reach London early this week, and reports as to its condition and the way in which it was received arc anxiously awaited, for they will have an important bearing on the future of the meat trade of Australia. The Minister of Commerce is calling a conference of departmental experts and others, and this will take place in Melbourne very soon. Full reports of the Now* Zealand shipment will be available at that conference. The New Zealand beef is being -carried in an atmosphere containing carbon dioxide, the object of which is. to suppress microbal growth. Senator McLachlan, Minister in Charge of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, said that experiments had been carried* out in Brisbane on the storage of chilled beef at tho council’s food preservation laboratory, which was Tim in conjunction with the Queensland Moat Industry Board. Those experiments had indicated that, when concentrations of carbon dioxide of 10 pnr fTnt. to 12 per cent, wore employed in the storage atmosphere, beef would keep in good condition for upwards of sixty days. Such a period of storage would be ample to ensure safe transport to England. One marked advantage of employing carbon dioxide for suppressing bacterial ami mould growth, said the Minister, was that it was unnecessary to employ forced air .circulation during storage, and tho bloom of tho. meat therefore was not. impaired to any material extent.. Further experimental work was proceeding on various details on which information was necessary before it. was possible to proceed with regular shipments on a commercial scale. However, it must bo obvious that Australian work on this highly important economic problem was well advanced. The council could speak with confid* once in its results, because they had Ir'Cn built up on a prolonged study of the growth of micro-organisms at low temperature, and the main types and sources of infection during the dress ing and handling of the beef. They had been substantiated by three separ atr types of experiment the storage, of quarters of beef, the growth of many types of moulds, bacteria inoculated on sterile tubes of meat, and the growth of many organisms in artificial cultures. The Australian experiments wero well up to those of any other country, and tho portents wore encouraging. Tf Australia could get chilled beef to the Lon!<>ii market it would give a tremendous impetus to the. beef cattle industry.