PRESERVED MEAT.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2036, 13 November 1869, Page 2

PRESERVED MEAT.

Tho London correspondent of the Wellington Independent , writing on August 13th, says : It has been stated here that practical men have been engaged in Glasgow to go out to Otago to assist in the formation of a meat preserving establishment in that enterprising province. Canterbury also is represented as being determined to share in the profits and advantages of this article of export. Wool has gone down, and preserved meats are coming up. As wool does not return a sufficient income, it will have to be supplemented with mutton and beef. This is the most effectual form of practical “ self reliance,” and your readers may depend upon it, that if they can combine food and clothing —if they can send us meat as well as wool —it will be found to pay in every sense of the term. Thirty millions of people in the United Kingdom are interestfH nrtM'-qw&ten i advertise-

ments proclaim it, the Press applaud it. All the supplies yet to hand have met with a ready and eager demand. At present we are wholly dependent upon Australia, and the latest advices from that colony show that they cannot meet the present demands. As yet New Zealand has done nothing in this direction. Can it be perchance, that all your people are so absorbed by the one eternal topic of war that they hcT< e no time to bestow upon ordinary commercial matters —mere money getting. 1 opine not—otherwise the war would not be still “ dragging its slow length along.” However, banter apart, I hope your men of enterprise and capital are preparing soon to appear as contributors to the flesh-devouring British public. Be it fully understood, however, that we want “ a genuine article,” and “no bones” about it. If you can't supply this say so, and we must look elsewhere. You are to understand that although there is a great outcry for preserved meat, it has not yet come into general consumption. Quantity, and to some extent, quality, are still wanting. What is a few ship loads among millions of hungry people 1 If the article could bo sent fresh to the market here the demand would be general. The “ freezing process ” was to have accomplished this result. We are now waiting for the fact. However, independently of this, there is one establishment in Norton Folgate, which is said to dispose of 12 tons per week amongst the working classes. These imported meats consist chiefly of legs of mutton and other joints with the hones extracted ; and after they are salted, spiced, or smoked, as the case may be, they are rolled up and tied with string. The meat is then ready for use, and can be cut into slices like a huge German sausage. There is but little new in the way of curing it. it has been a good deal puffed and forced, and though when cut it looks fresh and inviting to the eye, yet it is thought to have lost a good deal of its original flavor. Beef of this kind is sold retail at 64d per lb, and the mutton at s^d; but while working people can buy inferior and coarse joints of fresh meat at 7d a lb, there is not sufficient inducement for them to give 6£d for salted meat. One would think that, considering the cost price of meat in Australia, it could be supplied at a lower figure in our markets—say 5d per lb. What really sells well and is likely to hold its place, is the beef and mutton preserved in tins by the old Aberdeen process, with this exception that the meat in tins in Australia has to be subjected to a greater heat before beiug soldered up. Australia and New Zealand, if they persevere, will be able to drive out of the meat-preserving trade those engaged in it in Great Britain, The principal demand for these meats has hitherto been for victualling the navy, merchant service, and passenger ships. As regards the general public, both in London and in the provinces, they has e not yet been made acquainted with these preserved meats. What we require are large district depots in every part ot London to feed the retail dealers. In short, the machinery or “ plant ” for working the business has not yet been set up, and until the meat is brought home to the working man’s door, next door to the baker’s and greengrocer’s, he won’t go into the city to look after it —half a day’s journey there and back. The Australian Meat Company, with offices in Gracechurch street, have an establishment on the Clarence Biver New South Wales, where they slaughter on an average about 7,000 head of cattle every year. Nothing is wasted. The best pieces are preserved, and the odd pieces are converted into “ Liebig’s extract of meat,” two ounces of which are said to be equal to 51bs of beef, and sell for Is 9d retail. The preserved beef sells for about per lb. But in order to bring it into general consumption, it should never exceed this figure, and should if possible be supplied to the consumer at or 5d per lb. There is just now a great scarcity of these preserved (in tin) meats, on account it is said, of slaughtering operations having to be suspended for two or three months in Australia owing to the heat on one hand, and to the scarcity of fat cattle on the other. The scarcity is the result of the dry weather during the summer months. New Zealand, I imagine, would kill and preserve all the year round, and cure hung beef and mutton nine months out of the twelve. If your graziers will sell supplies of stock at moderate prices, there is no reason why New Zealand should not take the lead iu meat curing and preserving during the next three years, a?}d $t the same time create a new staple product—-a permanent industry to endure for generations to come. But in order to accomplish an undertiking of this kind effectually, there must be hearty co-operation amongst the three orders of the com-munity—capital—energy-—brains ; for it rarely happens that the same individual is endowed with a monopoly of these several “ properties,” dall welling within the one fleshv tabernacle.