FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3793, 24 April 1891, Page 2

FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Address 1)7 Mr W- Weftdel. Mr Weddel, of the firm of W. Weddel and Co., addressed a meeting of the Egmont Agricultural and Pastoral Association the other day. He said:— I have read a good deal about the advantages possessed by the province of Taranaki, and have been anxious to see for myself to what extent these reports were well founded. It therefore gives me great pleasure to be with you to-day to be able to assure you that what I have seen of your district more than confirms what I heard as to the advantages ! possessed by it. The depression which was prevalent throughout New Zealand when I was in the colony about five years ago has now practically passed away. So far as your district here is concerned the dairy industry must have been of great assistance to you, but I think that you will admit that your prosperity has been principally owing to the marked success of the frozen maat trade. Five years ago when I left New Zealand many of those growers who were best able to judge of the capabilities of New Zealand as a meat exporting country, estimated that 1,000,000 carcases of mutton would be quite the outside quantiiy to which she might hepe to work up, and other good men were strong in the belief that were thiß figure reached, it would simply be by such a severe depletion of the Hooks of the country that the export of meat would die off again in a very few years. What a curious commentary on these opinions is afforded by the statistics of the imports of New Zealand mutton into London for the past three years, namely. 1888 ... 989,000 carcases. 1889 ... 1,068,000 „ 1890 ... 1,562,000 I would not be surprised if the year 1891 showed an import of close on 2,000,000 carcases, and I look for a steady increase in the trade each year, especially from the North Island. At present in the North you appear to be using a considerable portion of your surplus to stock up the new country which you are rapidly opening up, but when this process is over, and the newly opened districts, instead of to a certain _ ex* tent draining away the surplus of the older settled districts, have themselves a surplus for export, then the increase in the shipments must be very considerable indeed. The total import of frozen mutton last year into the United Kingdom from all sources amounted to 8,100,000 carcases. The total annual consumption of mutton in the United Kingdom is 16,000,000 carcases, made up as follows: Home killed 12,600,000 Imported alive ... 400,000 Imported frozen ... 8,100,000

Total 16,100,000 It will thus be seen that frozen mutton now forms a large percentage of tbe total consumption, and it seems certain that this percentage will annually increase. This shows that the prejudice at Home against the use of frozen mutton is being gradually overcome, and there are now in all the towns of any importance throughout the United Kingdom large numbers of shops devoting themselves almost exclusively to the sale of imported beef and mutton, and are advertising