THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 126, 8 May 1884, Page 2

THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

(From the Queen, March 21st.) There is no subject of higher importance to those having moderate or fixed and inelastic incomes, that the butcher’s bill, and it is a subject well worth discussion and consideration with the view of amending the existing stale of things even ever so little. It is a fact that, notwithstanding the fluctuations which are constantly quoted in the reports of the meat markets no reduction ever reaches the consumer. Every observant household! v will have noted that although the butcher charges Is. 4d. per lb. for rump-steaks, he constantly sends in pieces of inferior parts, passing them off as being cut from the rump of beef. Neither does the butcher omit an opportunity of throwing in a piece of bone—oftentimes pieces that obviously did not belong to the joint sent in. No wonder that the trade of a butcher flourishes, and that amongst the published list of bankrupts his name is conspicuous by its absence. Smarting under the pressure of my weekly bill and being one of those whose income is inelastic, I find it an extremely difficult thing to make both ends meet. Each leg of mutton, or piece of beef, averages something like half-a-sovereign, and when a family consisting of three strong young fellows and their parents, sit down to that joint, it is, when they rise from their places, shorn of its fair proportions and also greatly reduced in weight. An opportunity offering recently of examining cargoes of frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand I was surprised to find the excellent quality and condition of the large shipments from those distant parts of the world, and I looked fora reduction in the price of legs of mutton, for which I have been paying the high rate of 13d. per lb. But I looked in vain, no reduction could be effected; the butcher resisted and pointed to the extraordinary high price of sheep. Impressed with the idea that the public was not being fairly dealt with, and

doubting the assertions so glibly made as Io the inferior quality of frozen meat, I determined to visit the meat markets and ascertain for myself the price of foreign meat, and where I could purchase it direct. My first visit was to the Central Market, in Smithfield, there I came across pait of some of the cargoes of frozen meat from New Zealand, and noted the ready sale, and constant demand for this description of meat which was rapidly being convoyed to the numerous butchers carts in waiting, the wholesale price, taking the carcase being 51d. American beef I found was being purchased freely by the butchers on equally favourable terms. Immense quantities pass into consumption every week, as shown by the Board of Trade returns, being sold as Home produce, and at full prices of that quality of moat. In rare instances is foreign meat sold as such, and at proportionate prices. Ttly next step was to find where I could purchase small quantities, at a fair price, of Australian and New Zealand mutton, , and American beef. My researches resulted

in a signal success, and I purchased the primest quality of American beef at 9d. and lOd. per pound for ribs and sirloins, and no better meat was ever put on the table. The price I am paying in the suburb I reside in is 13d. per pound ready money; but I give a decided preference to the American grass-fed meat to that of our corn and oilcake-fed joints. My next venture was in the direction of Au tralia, resulting in the purchase of a haunch of mutton, of excellent quality, at B.ld. per pound, both sorts being fully equal to the best home-fed mutton I can get at 13d. Should this subject be deemed of sufficient interest to obtain space in the columns of The Queen, I should be happy .to supplement this statement with my further progress in economic research.