Our Frozen Food

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 260, 12 November 1901, Page 4

Our Frozen Food

EXTRAORDIDARY GROWTH OF A GREAT TRADE. [ Daily Express. ] Si.v.’K ISBO the people of Great Britain have eaten 60,050,021 carcases of frozen mutton and lamb. And yet there are butchers who declare that they never sell anything but the “ best English —at best English prices. Messrs John Rose and Co., who sent live carcases of prune New Zealand mutton by the Grimsby relief train, arc one of the few firms doing straightforward business with the British housekeeper in New Zealand mutton and American beef. While other people, in defiance of the Board of Agriculture and tho Merchandise Marks Act, are selling New Zealand mutton as British, Mr Rose plainly placards his shop in Bishopgate Without, and live other depots, with notices showing that lie deals in foreign meat and poultry.

“ X started one Saturday some years ago with six carcases,” said Mr Boss, and I have since sold thousands - indeed, I placed a contract for 10,000 sheep at one time. I have done all I can to persuade English people that New Zealand meat is cheaper and more nutritious than Homegrown. Aid IN TWENTY' YEAKS. “ The growth of the foreign mutton and lamb trade has been most extraordinary— I mean the whole trade, not my own retail business only—and, as the Express has stated, a considerable quantity of the meat is sold as British at British prices.

in lfftiO the trade commenced with an import of 400 carcases ; in 1900 nearly six and a half million carcases were imported. about one-half of which came from New Zealand. "An average of six steamers arrive in the Thames every month from New Zealand, bringing from 40,000 to 100,000 carcases each. .At Bmithfield, prime Now Zealand, which makes a better price than any other frozen mutton, is now selling at ’Os lid to 2s 7d a stone of <s!b, in comparison with Scotch and English at 4s id to -Is Hd. “ In face of these facts, it is certainly absurd for anyone to pay the price of English mutton for frozen.

It ought to be perfectly easy for inspectors, appointed by the ltoyal Agricultural Society or any other well recognised body, | to secure evidence of tiie suits of frozen i meat as English, and proceed under the ! Merchandise Murks Act. The result of | such prosecutions would be beneficial all round. English farmers would got a better price for their own Home-grown produce, and the honest sellers of New Zealand meat would bo greatly encouraged. AKE THEBE NO INSPECTORS ? On the question of prosecuting the people who dishonestly sell frozen meat us British a correspondent writes : “ Surely if the Now Zealand Government can take proceedings and obtain j convictions under the Merchandise Marks Act in this country without the assistance of the agricultural societies in procuring evidence, it is absurd or the English Board of Agriculture to say that it cannot do likewise. “ Has the Board no inspectors, as the New Zealand Government seems to have, in this country, who could institute a few prosecutions on behalf of the British Agriculturalists, whose interest the Board is supposed to represent ? “ Those inspectors could easily obtain satisfactory evidence of fraudulent sales to ensure convictions being secured if they desired.”