Frozen Meat Trade.

Feilding Star, Issue 123, 22 November 1895, Page 2

Frozen Meat Trade.

[Per Press Association] Christchurch, Nov. 21. Mr John Holmes, who has just returned after a long visit to Great Britain and who spent a considerable amount of time enquiring as to the disposal of New Zealand produce in England, in the course "of an interview expressed the opinion that the frozen meat trade was very badly managed. It" the management was good Canterbury mutton should be 6d or 7d per lb. At present butchers who professed to make the trade in New Zealand meat bought a few carcases of New Zealand and many inferior sorts of River Plate or Australian. The New Zealand newly thawed were sold as English. Those not sold when freshly thawed became blackened through the serum of the blood running out and leaving the solid constituents to coagulate iuto dark colored stuff of the most forbidding appearance. These were then sold as New Zealand, and so wero those from Australia and River Plate. Two questions must be solved before the trade could be made a success — one the defrosting of meat, and the other disposing of it by people under some obligation to sell it as New Zealand, Nelson. Bros. 's system of defrosting is undoubtedly a great improvement on the ordinary plan, but could be carried out to only a limited extent. At present the frozen meat is used only by the middle classes, working people will not look at it. To overcome this prejudice he thought that Government or those interested in the trade should give free dinners, to which representative workmen should be invited. He had been assured by butchers that the meat is now not so good as some years ago, being too young. Prime 4 tooth wether is much better suited to the London market than prime 2-tooth.