Frozen Meat Trade.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 87, 9 October 1896, Page 2

Frozen Meat Trade.

Mr John Yeats, late of Hawera, writes to the Hawera Star as follows from London: — " I thought perhaps a few words from me would not come amiss as I have been going around taking particular notice of the shops and the way our meai is sold in London. I have seen in the shops in the best part of London — first-class shops — meat marked up at the following prices : — Legs, 7d per lb ; haunches, 8d ; shoulders, 6|d ; breast and neck 4 ld. In the lower parts where the cheap shops for the workingmen and poor people are, where itissold right up to 1.30 on Sunday morning, these are the general prices. The shops differ in their prices from Id to 2d per lb ; legs, 3£d to sd ; loins, 2£d to 4d ; forequarters, shoulders 2d to 3£d ; neck and breast, Ud to 2£d. The last hours they sell at random, so the people who have been spending their evenings at the pubs, with what money they have left come in for cheap joints — half shoulder, 6d ; legs, from Is to Is 6d fihe lot. I have seen pieces of beef sold by Dutch auction for Is which would cost me 2s to 2s 6d in Hawera, and the horrible sight of the pieces on the board is enough to turn you sick. Pieces cut up of New Zealand meat sold at Id and l£d to 2d per lb. You can see the people in their half- drunken state buying this stuff, but I must give credit to some shops, where the meat is beautifully clean, and always marked " Canterbury prime lamb and mutton kept in cool stores during the hot season." I can assure you I have had a splendid meal off a loin of lamb at 2Jd per lb.