New Zealand Now Leading Food Supplier To Britain

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 46, 14 May 1948, Page 7

New Zealand Now Leading Food Supplier To Britain

A comparison of Britain’s imports of meat and dairy produce last year with the pre-war figures indicates plainly the very important position New Zealand now occupies as a of food for the British people. It is no new development for New Zealand to be one of the main sources of Britain’s imports of meat, butter and cheese; what is new is a change of emphasis, altering New .Zealand’s position from that of one among several main suppliers to the position of leading supplier, or of the only significant supplier from non-dollar sources. This change has come about because many countries no longer have food that they can send to Britain, while others are within the dollar area and imports from them must' be cut down to the minimum. With butter, New Zealand is now supplying more than half Britain’s total imports, compared with onequarter in 1938; not because our exports have doubled, but because supplies from other sources have practically disappeared. With both meat and cheese the most important sources of supplies, apart from New Zealand, are now dollar countries. When- food supplies are so near the borderline as they are in Britain today, any changes in the quantities we send may make all the difference between maintaining the ration or cutting it still further.