MEAT CONSUMPTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5106, 28 March 1927, Page 3

MEAT CONSUMPTION.

SUPPLY USED IN SYDNEY.

400 TONS A DAY,

"The Sydney public will not eat frozen meat when they know it. Yet they do eat it, and relish it, while saying all the time that they would not have frozen meat if it were given to them,” facetiously remarked Mr JB. Cramsie, president of the Metropolitan Meat Industry Board, in an address at the Lyceum, Sydney, on "The Romance of a City’s Meat Supply.”

Four hundred tons of meat arrive in Sydney every night for consumption in the metropolitan area next day. No industry is more precarious to handle. Between 60 and 70 inspectors trained to the work are responsible fcr seeing that nothing diseased goes into consumption. - “You may thing the price for rump steak too high, but, all things considered, I can assure you that it is reasonable. The people o'f Australia , are supposed to eat the best quality of meat, and as economically as is passible,” Mr cramsie said. At the same time he suggested that the mul.tiplicity of butchers’ shops was top great, and that the public could do with half the number ai.id get equal service.

In tire early days of the Australian meat industry it was a minister of religion. (Rev. Dr. Lang) who first moved for the exportation overseas of Australia’s huge surplus o'f meat. Tribute was paid to the late T. S. Mort as a man who spent years of his life and thousands of pounds in finding a way by which Australia’s meat could profitably be sent to the other ■ side of the world. “It would be little enough for stock-producers to pay an annual pilgrimage to the grave of T. S. Mort 'for what he did for the enterprise,” Mr Cramsie suggested. The first shipment of meat for export made from Sydney proved a •failure, and had to be dumped overboard in the harbour. The second shipment ivas a success. Two years later New Zealand followed Australia’s example and had been exporting ever since. MEAT-EATING NATIONS. Figures were quoted by Mr, Cramsie to prove his statement that Australians, while large meat-eaters, are not the largest. The Argentine, with 3461 b of meat per capita per. annum, comes first; New Zealand, with 3111 b, second ; Australia, with 2221 b, third. In the United States the consumption is 1541 b per capita, Great Britain, 1291 b, France 1151 b, Germany 1041 b, and Denmark, 1001 b.

Of the meat imported into Great Britain, Australia supplies 15 per cent. Though the percentage is not large, it was pointed out that this quantity prevents any combine from raising the prices in England. This, however, was sufficient to allow several millions of people there to have a meat diet, and the price paid by the consumer was low, considering the quantity England had to import. Frozen meat, it was explained, is treated at a temperature of 4deg. above zero. In the case o’f chilled meat it is quite different, the .treatment being at a temperature of 29deg. TRAVELLING STOCK. On the subject pf .travelling stock and killing, Mr Cramsie said he was not opposed to country killing, but in every case where it had been tried during the last 40 years it had failed. The problem of transporting chilled meat from the country to Sydney was one which he believed, it would be extremely difficult to get over. The travelling time o’f stock trains had been considerably reduced, but .they should press for a .further acceleration, so that no cattle should be on a train more than 24 hours. The better meat was handled the longer were its keeping qualities. Usually stock was allowed to stand 12 hours, and often 48 hpurs, after being released from the truck, before being killed.

As to mitigating the sufferings of animals, Mr Cramsie said, much might be done by preventing the, huge recurring losses .from droughts. At the present time there were 55,000,000 sheep in this State, yet they were no better prepared than during the last big drought, so far as fodder conservation was concerned. He regarded it as a Government duty to bring in some practical scheme of fodder conservation. The loss of twelve million pounds in a year from this cause was a serious matter. SLAUGHTERMEN NOT CRUEL.

“Some people are under the misconception that slaughtermen are a cruel class of people. Speaking from an experience of 25 years in the meat industry, I can testify that the general run of slaughtermen are just as g'-od as the ordinary working men, and their, feelings are just as humane,” .Mr Cramsie said. “The hammer is now invariably used at the slaughter-house in the despatch o’f animals, and is accepted the world over as the most humane method.”

Ladies who wear “tortoise-shell” combs will be interested to learn, on Mr Cramsie’s testimony, that these are being manufactured from the hoofs o’f cattle killed in Austraian abattoirs.