FROZEN-MEAT FOR GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1584, 30 October 1912, Page 10

FROZEN-MEAT FOR GERMANY

PROSPECTS OP TRADE. An ■ interesting review of the position and prospects in regard to the importation of Australian meat into Germany is given by the Berlin correspondent of the London "Telegraph," who writes as under:—

Some months ago an experimental consignment of 50 carcasses of Australian mutton was sent to Chemnitz, in Saxony, but the reports which appeared in the papers suggested that it did not please the palates of the population of that town, and as nothing more was heard of further shipments, it was assumed that the trial had been a failure. It appears, however, that the shippers were able to dispose of the meat at Id. per lb. less than the rate prevailing for native mutton, and were quite satisfied jrith the success they attained, and that the delay in following it up. has been, due to technical difficulties, which have now been overcome. Chief of these seems to have been the absence of refrigerating wagons on the German railways, and this obstacle has been surmounted by a contract with a French company, which has undertaken the land transport. It is. stated that cold storage of adequate capacity to accommodate the quantities of frozen mutton which it is proposed to import already exists in Hamburg, Berlin, and certain 'other largo German towns.

This enterprise threatens little short of a revolution in the German meat trade, for during the whole of last year there were imported into this country only 1377 live sheep and 221 tons of mutton. Like all revolutions, it will meet with vigorous opposition, which is, indeed, already being sedulously organised. All the papers, which are more or less dependent on agrarian circles of readers,

havo for weeks past been warning tho public that the frozen meat is tough in consistency, insipid in flavour, deficient in nutriment, and swarming with deleterious microbes. Apart altogether from these interested persons, very many' Germans have tho same prejudice- which obtained against frozen meat in England when it was first introduced into the European mn.rket. A T or is mutton under any circumstances a favourite dish of the German. Tho animals slaughtered in this country for food last year included 8J million cattle, of which considerably more than half were calves under three months old, 184 million pigs,'and only 2J million sheep. However, for sonic iinfathomablo reason, Berlin is a very largo consumer of mutton, half a million sheep, or more than one-fifth of the total for Germany, having besn devoured in this city last year. \ It will be interesting to watch the fortunes of Australian meat in Germany, for there are other ways than duties and inspections by which importation can bo obstructed. A great deal can, 'for instance, be effected by means of railway i rates. No doubt the price of meat has at the moment reached n figure at irhicli it is a graver inconvenienco to the Government than the displeasure of the agrarians would be. If it should fall again to something like a iiormal level the position might be reversed. There will bo much gnashing of teeth should confirmation be given to the report that Hie authorities are counting upon tho permanent importation of frozen meat, and altogether the situation would in such an event become a most interesting one.