PORK EXPORT TRADE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 185, 30 March 1932, Page 7

PORK EXPORT TRADE

(From a Correspondent.)

1 SCIENCE HELPS 3 . ■ . I - ~ ' • assistance for growing empire bacon industry. experiments in england.

LONDON, February 3. Scientific experiments in progress i at the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge, under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, have proved that frozen pork, which has been stored for a longer period than would be necesgary to send it to Great Britain from Australia and New Zealand, can still be made into very good bacon. It was with the objeet of finding out exactly how f ar frozen pig meat is liable to deterioration in cold storage during transport, and the best ways of bringing it over from the Dominions, that an investigation was started. It was carried out at Cambridge, where' there is one of the best equipped low temperature laboratories in tlie world. This is Governmentowned, and is supiported partly by grants from the Einpire Marketing Board. A staff of experts is continually at work here studying the behavioun in cold storage of many sorts of foodstuffs, froni pears to pork, and finding methods of improving storage and transport conditions which will help the overseas producer. There are two ways of putting Australian and New Zealand bacon on the market. One is to send it over ready cufed. The other is to expoft it as frozen pork and have it cured in Britain. Cured in Britain. It has been definitely shown by scientific work that mild-cured bacon cannot yet be satisfactorily transported over long distances. So far, no simple way has been found of preventing the fat turning rancid after about six to eight weeks' storage. The alternative, however, gives satisfactory results. Bacon fully as good as the Dutch, and very little inferior to the Danish, can be made in Britain from meat sent from Australia and New Zeqland as frozen pork. There is no reason, moreover, why the quality should not be improved by more care at each stage of pig production and of transport and storage of frozen carcases. Australia and New Zealand are now Britain's chief sources of supply of frozen pork. Exports from New Zealand in 1930 were valued at £540,000. As the dairy industry expands in the two Dominions, the disposal of surplus pigs will become inereasingly impoi'tant, for pigs are a by-produet of dairy ing. The frozen pork trade is, therefore, likely to grow steadily. These experiments will help it to do so by eliminating the distance factor, so that frozen pork eould be sent to any country in the world.