NEW FOOD PRESERVING PROCESSES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 306, 1 June 1889, Page 3

NEW FOOD PRESERVING PROCESSES.

'‘YANKEE HOCUS POCUB" OB THE GENUINE THING f THE ARKTOS BEFBIGEBATOR

(ACCBLASD STAB OOBBISTOSBSNT] LoNOOK, April 22. During the past week Mr Douglas McLean, Mr McHardy (of Napier), Captain Bush (of Hawkes Bay), Mr Henry Bussell, and many others interested in the frozen meat trade have visited the offices of the new Food Breeervative Company, inspected the various victuals which have been fumigated, and, like myself, came away believing, yet perplexed. Most of them have since had a joint treated and sent home, and are now testing the efficacy of the preservative by hanging the meat in their own larder. I did not, I must say, find the Secretary altogether jump at my proposal when I notified him I meant to carry out this experiment. “I thought, he said reproachfully, '* we had conk vinced you.” A doctor to whom I mentioned the preservative scouted the' possibility of such a process. You are the victims of a Yankee hocus pocus,” he said. “ The appearance of freshness is preserved, but not the reality. Make a meal off this mummified meat and then send for me. I shall be badly wanted." On the other hand, Mr Henry Russell is so thoroughly convinced of the extraordinary nature and importance of the discovery that he is urging on the Imperial and Colonial Trading directors the imperative necessity of securing the patent for New Zealand. Should the preservative on being tested break down, there can be no doubt whatever there is a great future before the Arktos refrigerator, which I mentioned in my last. This, it seems, is incomparably the cheapest refrigerating process known as yet. For from 8d to Is a day a chamber capable of holding several thousand carcases can be kept at the requisite degree of frost. It is so simple a child can work it, and them is no machinery to get out of order. Major Deane is interesting himself to secure the New Zealand patent, for which the inventor asks £25,000. I went yesterday to see a number of the new Arktos refrigerators at work at the patentee’s yards in Regent Square, Here at any rate there is no hocus pocus; the whole process is as as A B 0, and as cheap as it is r ’Sjpple<. There is no machinery and skilled labor required. A lad of

13 looks after the six Arktos refrigerators jn operation, and they only occupy g portion of his time. The importance pf this discovery lies in the fact that it brings a cheap and thoroughly effective ■ refrigerator within the reach of butchers, hotelkeepers, restaurateurs, and tradesmen generally. For about £250 it is now possible to erect a freezing phamber 10 feet by 10 feet with Arktos pipes, small furnace, &c., all Complete. Once put up, this concern costs from Sd to lOd per day to work, and can <be looked after by any unskilled person you happen to have available. The furnace has to be lit for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. This suffices to retain the freezing chamber at about 13 degrees Fahr, for 24 hours, even though you may once or twice temporarily raise the temperature by the insertion of newly killed meat. The cold generated by this ammonia process is phenomenally dry, so that entering the chamber from the outside, one hardly notices it. The chambers at Regent Square are crammed with every conceivable kind of fish, flesh and fowl, yet there is absolutely no smell. We were shown meat which had been eight months there, yet which in appearance looked no different (and we were assured would eat in no way differently) to joints inserted the Kvious day. It is worth nothing, , that the Arktos succeeds in presetting fish better than any of the known refrigerators. A gentleman tells me he tried a notable experiment with, some soles which were left in an Arktos six weeks, and then taken out and compared with a pair purchased from the local fishmonger’s that same afternoon. His family and friends were asked at dinner to discriminate 4 between two sets, and say which were which. All agreed there was nothing to choose between them. The inventor and patentee of the Arktos have already (the discovery has been made public barely a month) far more London orders on hand than they can

possibly execute. They have taken out .’patents in 40 countries, and are anxious to sell half their interest in each of them. The Australian patents are still open, but that for New Zealand is under offer to the Company the Mclvers are trying to organise, the price being £25,000. Whilst Daniells Cordner’s “ Preservative ” seems on the surface infinitely the most wonderful invention of the two. I cannot somehow help feeling that if I had dollars to invest I should prefer risking them over the “ Arktos.” That this ammoniaprocess must sooner or later supersede every known refrigerator is, I feel perfectly sure, as certain as that the sun—sometimes—shines. The only fear, of course, is that Mr Daniells may (as lie claims) have hit on a process which will entirely supersede refrigeration. The pretentions of Daniells-Cordner and Co. are indeed “ prodeegious! ”