ARGENTINE MEAT AGREEMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 222, 19 September 1928, Page 4

ARGENTINE MEAT AGREEMENT

THE NEW QUOTA. NO SELLIN6 RING. Developments of no little importance, and which may eventually prove to be of a far-reaching character, are 'taking place in Britain's imported meat trade. These are instanced by the agreement entered into between the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Company and the Sansinena, the oldestablished Argentine concern, and by a financial arrangement also concluded between the River Plate British and Continental Meat Company and Armours of L €hicago. The trade is handled by eight firms. These are:—Vestey and Co., Armour and Co., Swift and Co., Smithfield and Argentine Meat, Wileon and Co., Sansinena Company, English and Dutch Meat, River Plate and Continental Meat. The first three comprise the large companies, which between them handle nearly 60 per cent of the trade. The Vestey group includes the Union Cold Storage Company, which in turn controls numerous wholesale- and retail businesses, among which are Eastmans and the British and Argentine Meat Company. * Prior to an agreement made at the end of last year indiscriminate shipping from the Argentine had involved all these companies in heavy losses. Under the new arrangement a quota has been agreed upon by which each company is to have aj certain proportionate share of the business done. Replying to the charge that a "ring" was being arranged which would fix prices to the detriment of the consumers, a wellknown Smithfield trader said recently:— "It must be quite clear that the alleged 'ring' does not exist. Chilled beef, which ie the principal commodity, is a very perishable' article, and when once it is decargoed it must be used within a comparatively small mimberi of days, or it has to be destroyed. All that the Freight Committee does is to meet from time to time to decide what is the capacity of the United Kingdom and Europe to eat the meat that it will whip. The various companies then sell in competition to each other, and they produce in competition to each other. If the public understood this and the reason of the losses in indiscriminate shipping, which at one time made meat scarce and dear, and at another time unsaleable, they would see that the socalled, war was no good to anybody, and could only have ended in financial disaster to all the concerns."