1、404 2008 ASHRAE ABSTRACTThe year 2007 was the 125th anniversary of the first frozenshipment of meat from New Zealand, to Europe. The Dunedincarried, in 1882, 3,521 sheep and 449 lamb carcasses whicharrived in London in a good condition, after a voyage of 98days. Today, New Zealand still exports a la
2、rge amount of frozenproduct around the world 92% of New Zealand lamb isexported, and meat exports comprised about 14% of NewZealands 2006 exports (and of course other products like fish,fruit and vegetables, and some dairy products are also trans-ported chilled or frozen). This means that refrigerat
3、ed shippingis still an important technology for New Zealand today. In thispaper the development of refrigerated meat shipping in NewZealand is examined as a consequence of improvements intechnology and the economic conditions prevailing in Englandand New Zealand in the late nineteenth century. INTRO
4、DUCTIONPreservation of meat is a food technology problem tack-led by many civilizations throughout history. However, it is inlarge, urban communities that meat preservation becomestruly critical. This is because the immediately surroundingcountry-side cannot provide enough food for the urban citi-ze
5、ns and hence food must be brought into the city from remoteagricultural centers. It is no coincidence that evidence of anindustry preserving fish by salting and drying has been foundin the ruins of the first Sumerian cities, dating from the thirdmillennium BCE (Curtis, 2001). In the early modern era
6、, by the 1800s England andHolland were highly urbanized in 1600 8% of the Englishpopulation was urban, which had risen to 27.5% in 1800 although during the same period throughout Europe the urbanpopulation was almost constant at about 10% (Hudson, 1992).Whether a cause or consequence, this was a fac
7、et of the indus-trial revolution, which initially occurred in England, and thelarge English urban population put pressure on its agriculturalsystems. This pressure led to an increase in imported food-stuffs: in 1700 26.6% of British imports were food, and by1800 the figure had climbed to 36.9% (Huds
8、on, 1992). For atime the British imports of perishable goods were sourcedfrom other parts of Europe, for example, in the mid-1860sabout 32% of lamb and 46% of beef sold in London wasfarmed in Continental Europe (Perren, 1975). However, thiswas also the period of British colonialism and colonialoutpo
9、sts around the world from South America, to Australia,to New Zealand offered access to new, secure sources of agri-cultural materials (the urban population of Holland aroseseveral centuries earlier during Hollands colonial apogee;Hudson 1992). Unfortunately, many of Englands colonies were remotefrom
10、 the English markets. New Zealand was the most distant;about 25,000 km (15,500 miles) which was still a 100 dayvoyage in the sailing ships of the late nineteenth century(Thvenot, 1979). This meant that only relatively inert agri-cultural products were easily exported from New Zealand toBritain (wool
11、 had been exported since the 1850s and tallowsince 1869; Loach, 1969), but the price of these began to dropin the late 1860s and 1870s. The New Zealand economy wasalso hit by the end of the gold boom, which had peaked in 1863(Robertson, 1939). In addition, cheap land prices in NewZealand had led, by
12、 1869, to a glut of surplus lamb stock inNew Zealand, which needed to be disposed of (Loach, 1969).Shipping meat back to England was an ideal solution to bothsolve New Zealands oversupply of lamb and also to meet theEarly Refrigerated Meat Shipping in New ZealandRichard Love, PhDAssociate Member ASH
13、RAERichard Love is a lecturer on food engineering at the Institute of Food, Nutrition, and Human Health, Massey University, Palmerston North,New Zealand.NY-08-0462008, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (www.ashrae.org). Published in ASHRAE Transactions,
14、Volume 114, Part 1. For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution, or transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAEs prior written permission.ASHRAE Transactions 405hunger of the English market. However, exporting less stableproducts, like meat, required
15、 the development of new preser-vation technologies. A particular concern was that the productwould pass through high tropical temperatures in the voyagefrom the southern to northern hemisphere. One candidate for meat preservation was canning.Canning, where meat was cooked and then sealed in air-tigh
16、tcontainers was pioneered in France in 1809 (Robertson,1939) this work was conducted during the Napoleonicwars, when the governments of Europe were desperate toprovision large armies. Australia had exported tinned meatpreserved in this manner since 1847, and in 1880, 7,200metric tons (7,100 tons) of
17、 canned meat were imported toBritain (Robertson, 1939). By the 1870s there were also morethan half a dozen canning factories in New Zealand (Here-ford, 1932), although some of the New Zealand factories useda chemical process where the raw meat was dipped in a bi-sulphite of lime solution (instead of
18、 cooking) prior to canning(Loach, 1969). However, the industry was unreliable (canswere frequently defective), and the product only fetched lowprices in the British market, which really desired “fresh” meat(Robertson, 1939). In addition, meat company finances werestrained as farmers often refused to
19、 carry the risk. This meantthat the meat company had to purchase stock for canning,rather than the farmer purchasing canning services forpreserving their own stock (Loach, 1969). These factorscombined to make the canning industry a very marginaleconomic proposition, and many of the New Zealand canni
20、ngventures were bankrupt by 1880.The other main candidate for preserving meat for trans-port was freezing or chilling. Low temperature preservation isan old idea. Various designs for ice-houses, to which alpine icewas brought over vast distances where it was stored and usedto chill foods in temperat
21、e climes, are recorded in both theancient and medieval worlds in Europe, India, and Asia(Curtis, 2001; Fiske, 1932). Francis Bacon (in the early seven-teenth century) recorded the first modern scientific experi-ments in the preservation of food, by stuffing poultry carcasswith snow although Bacon di
22、ed from pneumonia resultingfrom conducting this experiment (Robertson, 1939). Ofcourse, packing carcasses with snow was not practical for anocean voyage. Thus refrigeration technologies were requiredto firstly freeze the carcasses and then to keep them stable ata low temperature throughout the voyag
23、e.NINETEENTH CENTURY REFRIGERATION TECHNOLOGIESIn the 1870s and 1880s there were three main refrigera-tion technologies available: mechanical compression systemswith a number of different refrigerants to choose from (ether,ammonia, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and methyl chlo-ride), air-cycle mac
24、hines, and absorption systems (usingammoniawater as the binary mixture) (Thvenot, 1979).The first patented vapor compression refrigerationsystem seems to have been that of Perkins in 1834 (Gosney,1982). Perkins system operated in the manner familiar tomodern refrigeration engineers. Liquid refrigera
25、nt boils at alow pressure in an evaporator (drawing heat from thesubstance being refrigerated), the refrigerant vapor is thencompressed to a high pressure, and condensed to liquid(rejecting heat to the environment), the high pressure liquidrefrigerant is then passed through an expansion valve, final
26、lyreturning at a low pressure to the evaporator. Although Gosney(1982) notes that Perkins system was effectively ignored byhis contemporaries, various other engineers independentlyexperimented with similar systems over the next few decades;notably Harrison working in Australia, Carr and Tellier inFr
27、ance, Twining in America, and von Linde in Munich.The first air cycle machine was built in 1844 by Gorrieand viable commercial machines were developed during the1860s (Thvenot, 1979). Air cycle machines work bycompressing air drawn from a cold room (causing the airtemperature to rise), the air strea
28、m is then cooled with coolingwater, and then expanded (chilling the air). The chilled air isfinally discharged back into the cold room (Gosney, 1982).By 1877 a collaboration between the Glaswegian butchersHenry and James Bell, and the engineer James Coleman haddeveloped practical machinery for refri
29、gerated transport(Thvenot, 1979). The first absorption machine was invented in 1859 byCarr (Thvenot, 1979). An absorption refrigerating machineoperates, like the vapor compression machines, by boiling lowpressure refrigerant in an evaporator, but rather than thenbeing compressed, the refrigerant vap
30、or is absorbed in anotherfluid (the absorbent). The mixture is then pumped to a highpressure regenerator, where heat (perhaps from a boiler)vaporizes refrigerant. This high pressure refrigerant vapor isthen sent to a condenser (the absorbent is returned to theabsorber) where it is condensed, the liq
31、uid then passes throughan expansion valve, finally returning as low pressure liquidrefrigerant to the evaporator (Gosney, 1982). These sorts ofmachines were most enthusiastically used in applications likecooling in breweries where there was a strong desire to utilizewaste heat (for the regenerator)
32、from other processes(Thvenot, 1979).EARLY VOYAGESThe first successful shipment of frozen meat from thesouthern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere was thevoyage of the Paraguay from Argentina to France in 1877,although frozen and chilled meat had already been shippedbetween Australian cities since
33、 1861, and between NorthAmerica and Europe since 1873 (Thvenot, 1979). This shiphad an ammonia compression system for producing freezingtemperatures which had been developed by Carr (Roberston1939). Also in 1877, a shipment of chilled beef was broughtfrom Argentina to France aboard the Frigorifique,
34、 usinganother ammonia compression system developed by Tellier(Robertson, 1939). Chilled beef is easier to ship as it does notrequire such cold temperatures to be obtained and maintained406 ASHRAE Transactionsduring the voyage and it was preferred by the English market as the beef tissue is damaged b
35、y the formation of ice crys-tals during simple freezing methods (Robertson, 1939).Unfortunately, the limited shelf life of chilled beef meant thatArgentina (with a shorter trip to Europe) had a distinct advan-tage over New Zealand and Australia. In the 1880s, when thevoyage to England from New Zeala
36、nd took 90-100 days it wasnot practical for New Zealand to compete with Argentineanbeef (Barnicoat, 1936). In 1880, the steamship Strathleven arrived in London witha shipment of good quality frozen mutton (and beef) fromSydney, Australia. On the Strathleven the entire freezing oper-ation was conduct
37、ed aboard ship using the Bell-Coleman air-cooling system (Roberston, 1939). Since the late 1860s meathad been frozen and transported between Australian cities,and an earlier Australian attempt at export, in 1873, hadarrived in London with the meat spoiled the refrigerationsystem was a vapor compress
38、ion system that operated undervacuum, and the vacuum had been lost during the voyage(Robertson, 1939). In 1876 another group of Australians hadattempted to freeze the carcasses on-shore with an ammoniaabsorption system (Robertson, 1939) and then export thefrozen carcasses, but loading problems force
39、d the meat to beabandoned in Sydney harbor before the ship had even sailed(Loach, 1969). However, following the Strathlevens voyagean on-shore freezing works was successfully operated inMelbourne, which made a number of successful shipments toLondon, until an Australian drought and the spoilage ofse
40、veral shipments due to black mold forced the company intoliquidation in 1886 (Loach, 1969).In New Zealand, the Australian shipments were eagerlywatched and two ventures attempted to replicate the success.One venture outfitted the Dunedin with another Bell-Cole-man air-cooling system (Hereford, 1932)
41、. The stock wereslaughtered at a remote site, transported by rail to the ship,where they were loaded and then frozen aboard ship (Robert-son, 1939). There were some troubles with the Dunedins firstvoyage a mishap with the machinery delayed loading(Loach, 1969), and while the ship was in the tropics
42、emer-gency air ventilation ducting had to be cut between thecarcasses (poor air-circulation meant that some carcasseswere thawing; Robertson, 1939). However, the ship reachedLondon in May 1882 with her cargo in excellent conditionafter a 98 day voyage. The Dunedin carried 3,521 sheep and449 lambs th
43、at mostly sold for about double the New Zealandprice, except one sheep that was condemned (Hereford,1932). A few months later another shipment was sent in theMataura comprising of 3,844 sheep carcasses (Loach, 1969),which arrived in London in September 1882. The Matauraalso used an air-cycle machine
44、, of a similar design to theDunedin, but manufactured by the Haslam company(Thvenot, 1979). Again the cargo arrived in a good condi-tion, but this time not all of the meat sold (Loach, 1969). The reason for the commercial failure of the Mataura isimportant. When the Dunedin arrived there had been a
45、faminein England, but when the Mataura arrived there was a reason-able supply of meat in England and so only the qualitycarcasses sold (Loach, 1969). The carcasses from the Mataurathat did not sell were heavy fatty sheep in fact, such fattysheep in the Dunedins shipment also fetched a lower thanaver
46、age price (Hereford, 1932). However, despite the setbackof the Mataura it was clear that shipping frozen meat fromNew Zealand to England was viable and over the next fewdecades the trade continued to grow. Table 1 shows the earlygrowth in New Zealands export meat trade, and this growthwas fueled by
47、a number of new developments.DEVELOPMENTSStandards for mutton were introduced early on by theCanterbury Frozen Meat company, which began operating in1883, and instituted a quality control system to reject anysheep that did not weigh between 60 and 80 lbs (27-36 kg)(Loach, 1969). The companys strict
48、standards in fact contrib-uted to the founding of a rival regional company, in 1888, toexport rejected stock (Robertson, 1939). However, the inten-tion of the standards was to prevent un-saleable, heavy, fattysheep (like those carried by the Mataura) from reaching theEnglish market, and diminishing
49、the reputation of NewZealand meat (Loach, 1969). Indeed, there was early prejudicein the English market against frozen meat, driven by theconcerns of English farmers. However, the largely enforcedstandards, favorable reviews in English publications, anddisplays at the London (1886) and Paris (1889) Exhibitionshelped to sway public opinion (Robertson, 1939) work byfood scientists in the early 1900s also demonstrated to thepublic that refrigerated meat retained its nutritional value(Thvenot, 1979).Eleven frozen meat export companies were founded inNe
