Cargo Loaded By Pallets

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 3

Cargo Loaded By Pallets

(New Zealand Press Association! INVERCARGILL, July 18. With the recent 7-| per cent increase in shipping freight rates causing much discussion in New Zealand exporting circles at present, an experiment that entered its second stage at Bluff today will be keenly watched by the meat trade both in New Zealand and overseas.

Eighty-eight tons of cartoned frozen meat from the Alliance Freezing Company’s Lorneville works were loaded on the Cap Blanco, a Columbus Line ship, on pallets. The cargo is destined for ports on the west coast of North America.

The pallets, simple wooden platforms each holding a ton of meat in 35 cartons, enable produce to be transported in relatively large units from

the freezing works to the! overseas consignee with minimum time and manpower required for handling. Meat is commonly handled this way overseas, but so far the practice has not caught on in New Zealand. However, today’s trial shipment was handled at a rate much faster than would be usual under the normal system—under which each carton is handled individually. Joint Venture

The experiment is especially significant as it is the result of a joint approach by a New Zealand meat process ing company and an overseas shipping line —the sort of liaison that is essential if more efficient methods of cargo handling are to be developed in order to halt the upward curve in shipping costs. . The Cap Blanco will also load palletised meat at New I Plymouth. ' Southland’s Alliance works is at present the only one in the country with facilities for large-scale palletisation.