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Story: Meat and wool

Grading sheep carcasses

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Grading sheep carcasses

Sheep and lamb carcasses are weighed and graded at the Canterbury Meat Company works. Meat inspection and grading were introduced to give New Zealand meat a competitive advantage in Britain, where it was vying with Australian, Argentinian and homegrown meat.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: 1/1-019436; G

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Alistair Nicol and Caroline Saunders, Meat and wool – Classifying products, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/19212/grading-sheep-carcasses (accessed 24 June 2026).

Story by Alistair Nicol and Caroline Saunders, published 1 March 2009.