FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1125, 14 December 1883, Page 2

FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Mismanagement in Loudon.

The Sydney Morning Herald of the 22rd November writes as follows:

A statement by Messrs J. B. Johnston and Co., of this city makes a 'much-needed explanation of a telegram received some days ago upon the subject of the Home market for Australian meat. We were informed that the market was glutted ; indeed the telegram seemed to justly bear the Inference that the supply had temporarily exceeded the demand and that a cessation ofshipraents was advisable. Such an anntnncement in the first stage of development of a greatbusinesswas,if true, disheartening; but generally it was regarded as of very doubtful truth, and by those best versed in the matter was at once put aside as a ridiculous impossibity. Still an explanation was needed, and that explanation comes in the letter we have noticed. Messrs Johnston quote correspondence received, by them from Messrs Low, Huckvale and Co., “one of the oldest and best-experienced houses in London for handling such produce, who are not only agents for the sale of the output of the largest meat preserving company in the United States but also for the three most important in Queensland, andothercompaniesin New Zealand and this colony,” to this effect;—“ At presen* all consignments are plhced in the hands of one salesman in the Smithfield Market. You will readily see that one man with heavy stocks of a perish able nature on hand is compelled at limes to sacrifice.” This is the explanation : We have but one agent for our meat, and it is that agent’s clients, and not the people of London, who find a difficulty in disposing of our shipments. The remedy surely is plain as the cause. We require competent agencies at both ends—means of distribution in England ns of gathering and preserving in Australia. The business requires managing right through from the station in the interior to the butcher’s stall in the London market. The trade is new, and we are foolishly endeavouring to work it with old appliances. We are blocked by the overweighted salesman, humbugged by the middleman, swindled by the retail butcher, who sells Australian mutton 1 as best Home-bred at a shilling a pound, and whose customers are, in their ignorance, well contented with their bargains. We need our own agents, storerooms, stalls, and inspectors at Home, and a bold ad vertisement upon each quarter or carcase, which would convince even the most illiterate and prejudiced of English purchasers that meat could be brought from Australia and so prepared and exhibited that the most fastidious housewife could find no fault with colour, odour, or general.- appearance of her favourite joint.