March 7 , 1 9 1 8 
Land & Water 
23 
How Bovril Saves Shipping and Feeds the People 
PRESIDING at the General Meeting of Bovril. Ltd., 
Mr. George Lawson Johnston (Chairman), in moving 
the adoption of the report, referred to the general 
food position and how the price of Bovril has been 
kept down: — "Your own e.xperienc.e," he said, "will 
have brought you into touch with increases in price in most 
directions, and vou will have seen that the Board of Trade 
returns show a long list of rises of loo per cent, or more in 
the cost of food7Stuffs since the commencement of the war. 
I cannot call to mind many articles the prices of which have 
not been raised during the war. and I believe Bovril is the onlv 
national standard food that is sold at the same price in 
February, 191S, as it was in July, iqi4. That the price of 
Bovril has not been moved up with the cost (jf beef, although 
a p»und of Bovril is the concentrated product of so manv pounds 
(if beef, is an outstanding fact that requires explanation. 
Needs Little Shipping Space. 
"In the first place, in the countries which supply the raw 
materia] for Bovril. beef has not risen in 
value as it has here. Again, the abnormal 
cost ©f ocean transport only to a minor 
extent affects a concentrated preparation 
like ours, making as it does such small 
demand upon shipping space. 
"Apart from these general tendencies, 
vou are aware that during the last dozen 
vears we have endeavoured by the agency 
of subsidiary land and cattle companies 
to c«ntrol and develop new sources for 
the supply of raw material. This policv 
has borne good fruit during the war. 
These precautions, taken in past years, 
have ensured us the plentiful supplies 
that are so essential at the moment, and 
our materia] has not increased in price to 
anything like the extent of the raw 
material of some other industries. Taking 
all this into consideration, and realising 
that Bovril enters so largely into the food 
of the natfon, we felt that, with the 
increased sales and profits outside Bovril 
itself, we should be able to keep the 
Company's revenue at prt^-war standard 
without adding to the hardships of the 
comfnunity. I am glad that our foresight 
has not only been to our benefit as share- 
holders, but to the benefit of every 
l-Jovril consumer. His Bovril has cost 
liim no more, unless he has consumed 
more — which I am afraid he has. 
The area of the Bovril Argentine estates (shown 
in the rectangle) is more than 2 J that of Alsace 
and Lorraine. 
' No Profiteering.' 
" 1 know we lay ourselves open to the reproach of the share- 
holder who may say that this is not a philanthropic institution, 
but a commercial undertaking which should try to secure the 
biggest possible immediate profits. There is no ground I would 
s<.)oner be attacked upon than that of not having raised the 
price of a standard article of dietary during this time of food 
iiardship, especially meat-food heirdships, and I believe the vast 
majority of the shareholders will heartily endorse and approve 
this attitude. The cost of this policy, the deferred shareholder 
may say, concerns him only. Well, it is as the Company's 
largest deferred shareholder that I express that view. Tliat 
our whole attitude in this matter will redound to the credit of 
Bovril I have little doubt, for what better goodwill can we have 
in years to come than for the public to remember and say : 
'Bovril had its opportunity, but did not profiteer.' 
Bovril Co. a 'True Democracy.' 
" I think we can consider this Company a miniature demo- 
iratic institution. We are a co-operative body of over 11,000 
shareholders, and we control provinces in the form of estates in 
.\ustralia and the Argentine of 9I million acres, upon which 
there are over 250,000 head of cattle. We manage to produce 
eur beef product at a co.st which has enabled us to provide our 
millions of consumers with Bovril at prices unaltered during 
the war. 
"I mentioned the area of the joint Bovril Australian and 
Argentine estates just now at 9J million acres. Have you any 
idea what that area means ? It is larger than Belgium, and 
over 2^ times the size of Alsace and Lorraine ; or, if you would 
like a comparison nearer home, it is twice the size of Wale>;, 
or nearly the size of Wales and Ulster put together. 
" You will have noticed in the papers many estimates of the 
cost of rearing or fattening cattle in this country, usually proving 
that with beef at 60s. a cwt. live weight, the business was unpro- 
fitable. Even in more normal times the farmer requires at 
least /30 to £40 for a fat beast. 
Cattle v. Cereals. 
" Now, it may surprise you when I say the cost of rearing a 
9 to 10 cwt. steer on the Bovril Australian estates does not 
amount to 60s. altogether, and though the cost is considerably 
more in Eastern Australia and the Argentine, my point is that 
the rearer of stock in the northern part of this hemisphere, 
particularly in the thickly populated parts of Europe, has no 
chance, in competition with the stock raised in the open 
plains of the southern hemisphere — Australasia, South America, 
Africa. More especially will this be the case in normal times 
— say, after the war — when frozen beef will be sent ttiousands 
of miles to these shores at a transport ^cost so low that it 
can be covered by the utilisation of by-products at the 
great freezing works of South America 
and Australia — by-products which cannot 
be so economically handled in the 
comparatively small butchering establish- 
ments of this country. In making a 
statement such as this, I might add that 
I have no financial interest in freezing 
works ; in fact, some of them are com- 
petitors for the cattle we want for Bovril. 
" The cost of raising stock in Argentina 
and Australia is, roughly speaking, the 
interest on capital invested in the cattle 
and the land. The cattle are never under 
cover, and the number of men employed 
is so small that the payment to labour, 
spread over the head of cattle, has little 
effect on the final cost. 
" As regards the United States, though 
they are good enough to export beef here 
at present, that country will later have to 
buy heavily in the southern hemisphere 
in order to feed her owti growing popula- 
tion. " l# 
" I have taken up your time explaining 
the matter — little realised in Britain — 
in the hope that my remarks may reach 
the eyes of some farmers who do not 
realise that the paternal Ministry that is 
forcing them to plough u]) their grass land 
is not only doing so on account of the 
immediate war necessity, but because 
the getting of a larger portion of their 
farms under cereal production will be 
of the utmost permanent advantage to tliemselves and the 
State. * 
A Scientist's Opinion. 
"Nearly two years ago I quoted at the Argentine Estates 
Meeting scientific authority for saying that land growing wheat 
was producing fifteen times as much food energy as could be 
produced on the same area by way of grass and cattle to eventual 
beef. I then said : — 
" The . point which I wish to bring out is that if there 
is to be protection for the farm protjucts of this country with 
a view to encouraging a larger production of home-grown food, 
I can only imagine that that protection would be worked out with 
a view to the growing of cereals, leaving the raising of cattle, apart 
from the dairy industry, to the countries that have ample areas 
for that purpose. Now the watershed of the rivers that flow into 
the River Plate is the largest and finest stretch of pasture land in 
the world. It includes not only a. large part of the Argentine, but 
Southern Brazil, west of the coast mountains, and the Republics of 
Uruguay and Paraguay, whilst the cattle thereon must number 
over 60,000,000 head. These Ccfttle are grown almost entirely for 
beef, and certainly not one cow in a dozen, probably not one in 50, is 
ever domesticated for dairy purposes. This portion of South America 
is the great cattle reserve of the world, in the same way as Australia 
is the great sheep reserve. 
Immense Meat Works. 
" During the last two years, meat works have been erected 
further and further north into this vast continent of pasturage ; 
starting from the mouth of the River Plate, the original nursery 
of freezing works, they have now spread right up into Brazil and 
Paraguay. The principal duty of all these works at the present 
moment is to supply the armies of the Allies with beef, but after 
the war their equipment will enable them to supply the northern 
hemisphere with beef on a scale altogether unknown in the past." 
