THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2136, 18 March 1886, Page 4

THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

The Canterhuty Pie-s Ins recei\e<l the following advanced slip of a communication on the abo\e unpoitant subject which 'was to appear in a London neuspapei :—: — In haid times the price of the fir-t necL'Si.n i"b of life, hred'l and meat, aie of the highest concern to all. a'nl the cheapening of either of those commodities is a matter that interests all dwelleis in 'co densely populated populated a hnd as Biitain. Bread, as we all know, has long Ken so cheap tint it has taken a silent place, but up till quite icccutly ififitisekeepeis have com plained loudly of the price of meat Now we vcntuie to say that the import itions of fio/en mutton fiomXew Zetland have had such 'an effect upon the meat market in England, that all consumers have reason to biesd thodu who initiated thi* blanch of industry, and brought the meat grown in the Great Bntain of the South to the vast industrial consuming population of these islands. At the present writing it is not our .intention to enter into any history of the rise, progress, and present position of the enterprise known as the importation of frozen meat from New Zealand ; our wish is to take tint fact as it stands, and to consider the influence which the new operation of importing mc.it in a fresh state from the Southern Hemisphere is having upon the maiket in Engi md, and more especially how far it is influencing the mode of marketing meat, and is likely to influence the future supply of this necessary of lite. The importation of fresh meat from New Zealand has now beeu in progress fof about four years, for some time it was ,very difficult to get the consuming public to take the fro/en meat, they did not believe in it, the thousand and one prejudices that could be conjured up by the cstab'ished butcher and the ignorant cook stood in the way, and were cultivated to the uttermost, but gradually the New Zealand meat lias become a • marketable article, and the quality 'of the meat is now fully leogniscd, not , only as a souurl, sweet, ami nourishing food, but as equal in quality to *gootfliome-gro\vn mutton. The killing and dressing of the sheep in New Zealand is at once admitted to bo peifect, the quality firsfc-rate, and the mode of transit is a scientific fact that has been demonstrated, over and beyond which the extension or the freezing system to the form of storage, so as to allow the meat on ariival to be warehoused until a gradual market is obtained for it, seems to place the industry upon a basis that should warrant its maintaining a place as one of the safe and abiding trades. It is, however, now becoming pretty evident that New Zealand frozen meat is not co be the only cheap meat in the market. In speaking of cheap meat we will deal with retail prices, and New Zealand mutton at 7UI to S}d per lb, is now met in competition by English mutton at the same price. We know, in fact, that prime joints of New Zealand mutton and prime joints of English mutton have been offered in the same shop at the same pi ice, the quality of each being thoroughly good. Our friends at the Antipodes will naturally wish for some explanation of this, and especially will want to know how far this competit ion is likely to go. The introduction into this country of New Zealand mutton was a new element in the trade, the butchers, as might have been expected, set themseh es determinedly against the new impoit, and tried to strangle the new trade as its birth, but the importing interest had to defend its imported article, and was perfectly capable of doing so, and as the sequel pioves, a more unfortunate one for the butchers could scarcely have been made than their rejection of the New Zealand imports. A number of opposition shops were opened in the metropolis, and all the large towns ; a thorough trial was given ' to the frozen meat, honestly sold as such, and the position of the article was established almost, if not quite, on an equality with best butcher's meat, as retailed to the general public. But here comes in one of those unexpected changes which develops itself in connection with a trade both unexpectedly, and without any consideration for the interests concerned, be they colonial or be they English. A butcher, as generally understood, is a man who buys live animals and sells dead meat. He has to deal with all the paraphernalia of slaughtering, to sell h's skins, his offal, and his fat to the seveial buyeis of these commodities, and as a. matter of course, he needs pi onuses convenient for these operations, and a sufficient capital and connection for cairying out the necessities of his trade, but under the carcase importation system all this is found to be changed. A man can open a shop and take iv the fro/.cn sheep, cut up and sell in much the same fashion as a draper would cut up a piece of calico by the yard, or as a teadeaW might sell by the lb tea that lie had bought by the chest. The whole responsibility and expense of the slaughtering system is done away with at once, and the capital invested turned over week by week, if not oftener, whilst the nature of the new departure enabled and warranted the retail dealer in selling for cash only. Now it is geneially considered that of dull men, if you want them, the British farmer is as fair a specimen as is to be found, but we must candidly confess that in this matter the British agriculturist has pioved equal to the occasion. For years, if not for generations, the fanner iv this countiy has been the supporter if not the prey of the cattle buyer, the agent and the wholesale butcher, so that whilst the consumer has had to pay an extravagant price for his meat by the lb., the fanner has got the leanest price possible for his stock. The modus opcraiuh of the fro/en meat trade has penetrated to the presumed dull brain of the British farmer ; he seems to have reasoned thus : —The sheep grower in New Zealand slaughters his meat and ships it to London, and gets direct or almost direct to the consumer, now why should not I try the same plan, viz., slaughter my meat and either sell it to a man who keeps a meat shop —not one of the regular butchers — or employ such o man iv the nearest large town so to sell for me ? Perhaps the most singular thing is that this very evident proposition seems first to have occurred to the Kentish farmers, it then was taken up in Bedfordshire and v Sussex, and we recently read the following : — An example encouraging to graziers who desire to break through the alleged butcher's ring is furnished by a correspondent of the " Agricultuial Gazette." He killed in Christmas week a steer, for which he could get no bettei offer than £1S alive. The live weight was IHSIb, diessed carcase weight 6681b, or within 21b of three-fifths the live weight, The weights sold in joints were 41.'J|lb at Sd per lb, 91b at 7.U1, 31tf lb at 7.R 3Slb at 7d, 9<Hlb at &\, 74 Ub at 4d, 121b at 2d, 81b of waste, given away. Tallow and hide sold for £2 ],js (id. Total proceeds, £22 14s Gd. Had the dressed carcase been sold whole at l\d per lb, it would have made £20 14s 5k1,0r513 moie than it could fetch in the market, and the otfal and hide would have been left to the good. Our interest, we need hardly say, is in the colonial trade, but in that interest it is by no means necessary that we should shut our e^es to existing facts, especially ■when those facts aie of a nature that leave us to look more closely into the relations between the producer and the consumer, the ability to supply a sound and necessary maiket, whilst we have no concern with the elimination of the extravagant and expensive intermediary. It would seem likely, under this new aspect of the meat tiade, that the competition is likely to be, eeitainly so far as mutton is concerned, between the dead meat supply put into the market by the British farn-er on the one hand, and by the New Zealand grower on the other ; the latter producer is handicapped by distance but had the great advantage of cheap production. The " crux

of the matter is cheap and efficient carriage of the colonial commodity to market, the quality of the meat cannot lie called in question, nor can the slaughtering and dressing of the carcase be unproved ; can any improvement livj made in the mode of carriage, including the preservation process, and can th.it expense bu cheapened? It is in bringing the meat to rnaiket that the New Zealand' r has to consider his possibilities of improvement, for we are thoroughly convinced that m the new direction that the meat tiade has taken the competition in the future will lay between the Now Zealand farmer and the J>nti-h farmer, and that the marketing expenses of both will be gradually and permanently lessened. At the same time it is most satisfactory for all concerned to see that the more the subject i 3 enquired into the more evidence theie is that the trade in imported meat from New Zealand will be an endming and should be a largely increasing one.