§ Mr. DIXONasked the Food Controller if he can state how much extra freezing plant has been erected since this time last year and how many additional carcases it is able to freeze per week; if adequate cold storage has been provided to store these additional cacases of British beef and mutton; and what proportion of the carcases in cold storage at the moment are English?
§ Major ASTORIn the autumn of last year a portion of a cold store belonging to the Cardiff Railway Company was adopted for freezing home-killed meat to the number of 125 carcases a day. No new freezing plant has been erected since that time owing to the shortage of skilled labour and the difficulty of obtaining the requisite machinery either here or in the United States. The efforts of the Department have been concentrated on cold storage and, as a result of these efforts, there is adequte cold storage space for meat in the country at the present time. I am unable at such short notice to state the proportion of British and foreign carcases in cold store, but at present the amount of British meat forms a very small percentage of the whole.