THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 32, 1 October 1912, Page 7

THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

The industry that hangs on the slender piston rod of a refrigerating machine yet feeds nations with a regularity that defies famine is the opening of a chapter in a most interesting hook, “The History of the Frozen Moat Trade,” hy James Troubridgo Critchell and Joseph Raymond. Refrigerating is shown to bo one of the youngest of the industries and still in the region of experiment. It was only in 1877 that the steamer Frigorifique landed in France the first shipment of Argentine frozen moat. The meat was not landed in first-class condition; then came the Paraguay, which arrived in Havre with 5500 carcases of mutton from Buenos Aires, which wore landed in splendid order. Although the meat was bought and oaten to the last ounce with gusto hy the French, the experiment was not repeated. It served one excellent result, however : it stimulated Australian and New Zealand flock-own-ers to serious consideration of solving the problem of selling their abundance in the best market, London. And so in February, 1880, the steamer Strathlevcn is to bo seen discharging thh first cargo (-10 tone) of Australian beef and mutton in excellent order. New Zealand followed in >IBB2 with a cargo of 3521 sheep, 449 lambs, and 22 pigs. This went by the pioneer of the trade, the ship Dunedin, from Port Chalmers, and reached Smithfiehl market on 27th May, 1832.