FROZEN MEAT OUTLOOK.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1922, Page 7

FROZEN MEAT OUTLOOK.

BRIGHTER FUTURE IN HOME MARKETS EXPECTED. Palmerston North, Jan. 10. Cold Storage, the leading London meat journal, in its issue to hand by the last mail, has the following interesting article on the future of the frozen meat trade:— ‘The cold storage industry at the present time finds itself in a position in which, although the general trade position reveals great problems, there are .also enormous potentialities ahead. But the horizon is not without its clouds, and care and wise judgment will have to be exercised to the full in the safe development of any industry to which is due a greater prominence in the nation’s routine in the years before us. As a matter of fact, while the public stores are at present crowded to the doors with our over-abundant meat supplies, the frozen meat trade itself is suffering from that recurring complaint called a ‘slump.’ The present ‘slump/ however, is one which is all the more undesirable for the effect it is having on the mentality of the producer in the Southern Hemisphere, and if the process of getting back to a level of values approximate to pre-war rates is not managed with the greatest care, the effect may be one harmful to production, hence to the whole industry. ... “BriAy, the larger vista opened for frozen meat during the exigencies of the war has at present proved to be only temporary, and on the Old Country is placed the main burden of providing the con sumptive outlet for the bulk of the world s frozen meat. Whether next season’s imports will, in the light of recent exfierience, be of anything like the same volume as those of 1921 is doubtful. Moreover, we still have before us the possibility of Canadian store cattle forming a new section of Home supply here. Apparently to forestall any objection to that, the Canadian Government may establish finishing stations for its cattle in Belgium, Holland, or France, and supply us with the meat from that half-way house, which, incidentally, might prove cheaper to the Canadian and less profitable to us. Whatever be the outcome, the infallible result of progress in this era of’ anti-waste must be the fuller employment of refrigeration for meat exploitation, whether of home or of overseas origin. The possibilities of an early trade boom may, after all, give the colonial meat producer a rather better time in these markets next spring than he may at present be anticipating.”