DE-HYDRATED MEAT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 23, 2 March 1942, Page 2

DE-HYDRATED MEAT

ITS VALUE QUESTIONED

CONFLICTING RE PORTS

An extiaerdinary position has arisen in regard to the experiments sponsored by the Auckland Farmers' Union to demonstrate the practicability or otherwise of building up a trade in de-hydratcd meat.

Samples ol" the treated product were taken to Singapore during the recent visit to the Far East of the President, Captain Rush-worth, and the Secretary, Mr A. E. Robinson, and were considered exceedingly satisfactory by the military authorities there. One of the samples was brought back to Auckland, having thus had two voyages through the tronic.s -with no protection from the ordinary atmosphere. .At the December meeting of the Union Executive stain made from this sample was handed round to members, who

wore unanimously pleased with its flavour. At the time Captain Rushwortlf stated that the only addition made to the sample hart been ho! water and a small onion.

Hanging in the Union's meeting room on February I.Bth was another ■ample, then over 7 months old, and nt casual examination both as to sight and smell it showed no change from .the sample utilised for the attractive soup (wo months previous.

And now come particulars of an asiounding contretemps. Tn August last similar samples of the same product were sent to London for the Ministry of Food via the New Zealand High Commissioner. The reports received of these were damning in the extreme. One was from (he Lew Temneralnre Research SLat;on, Cambridge. This stated that th" l product looked like ordinary animal feeding meat meal, that the dry prodnet. lias the unpleasant odour of fertiliser meal, and when rceonstifu'od by s! earning "has a dis-

agreeable odour and is not recommended for human use."

Three other reports came front fhe firm of Pou'ton and No. 1 Limited, Scuthall Middlesex;,, one from the H'Mid Chef, -who found it "very obnoxious.'" and "totally unfit for human consumption," another from the Chief Chemist who said it closely resembled fertiliser, meat and bone nie-a 1 , and "is not suitable for

i'K''US"on in any of our products," and a third from the Works director who said "the smell is definitely objectionable, being reminiscent of fertilisers, nnd although the taste is net as bad as the smell, it is most

u nplcasant."

In forwarding these reports the Export Division of the Marketing Department stated that the United Ministry of Food had asked it not to allow any further shipments of meat powder. O'n receipt of the reports of the Union Secretary, Mr A. E. Robinson, got in touch with Government departments. He pointed out that the Marketing Department's letter contained no mention of anything but meat flour, but unofficially he had learned that the report upon the minced meat meal, which was exact'y the same except that it was not so finely ground, or cut, was to the eiTcct that it was thought .likely to be useful. The letter proceeded: "When an organisation goes out of its way to help the country in

its own time, and at its own expense,- I suggest that a rather mere sympathetic attitude might very well prevail. As already stated, Captain Rlishworth and I took a sample of this dried meat that is so thoroughly damned with us to the 1 East Indies last August. The remainder of the sample is in this office. I am prepared to guarantee that, made up as soup in the ordinary way and served in any hotel, there Avill be no complaint and nobody will be any the wiser as to what the soup is made of." In a separate letter to the Marketing Department Mr Robinson pointed out the contradictory nature of some of the British reports, and said that at least one of the reparts "creates a doubt as to whether by chance they got something that was not sent from here." In the discussion that followed members were obviously puzzled at the nature of the reports*. One sneaker said it seemed curious that the samples had been submitted to a private food manufacturing concern. It was decided to press upon the Government the ne?cssity for obtaining more information, and gen-| erally upon the provision of faeili-| ties for manufacturing de-hydra ted j meat on a large scale. I