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Argentina's traditional salted-beef trade and
old-time saladero got their revolution with the aid of British enterprise. It
was George Drabble, of the Central Argentine Railway, who set up the River Plate
Fresh Meat Company Ltd, in 1882, using refrigeration in his attempt to improve
the dry- and salted-meat trade. Refrigeration had been tested in Australia and,
on a small scale, by one man in Buenos Aires. Drabble built his plant at Campana
and, in 1883, the first shipment was made. Shipowners had no knowledge of the
new industry to induce them to overhaul vessels, so shippers had to provide the
equipment and instal it themselves. The Houl- Brothers Line ship Meath was
fitted and carried the first shipment to London, arriving in January 1884. The
meat-packing business which was to make Argentina famous had begun.
Liebig's Extract of Meat Company had started in London in 1865 with a capital of £150,000. It produced `Extractum Carnis Liebig', invented by Justus von Liebig, in Germany, in 1847. Georg Christian Giebert, a German railway engineer living in Uruguay, read about Liebig and his offer to give his formula to any person who wished to produce it in South America - because production was too costly in Europe, as thirty kilos of lean meat were required to make one of extract. Hamburg-born Giebert got the licence to produce the extract in 1865 and started the Societe de Fray Bentos Giebert & Cie., at Fray Bentos, on the River Uruguay. But he needed capital almost immediately and sought it in London. From 800 kilos in the first month of operations, production rose to 500,000 kilos ten years later. And in 1878 the company started to produce corned beef. |
 Enjoyed this extract? Read the rest of the book!
The Forgotten Colony by the well known journalist
and writer,
Andrew Graham Yooll,
is a classic reference to the life and
institutions of the community in Argentina. The book was first published in
London in 1981, but has not been reprinted since then. This new LOLA (Literature
of latin America) edition
takes the original London printing, and incorporates new material and
corrections. The book has an expanded chapter on the South Atlantic conflict in
1982 and brings history up to 1999, including the economic developments since
restoration of British-Argentine diplomatic relations in 1989.
Click on the cover to go to the LOLA site to purchase.
T he origin of the Argentine Estates of Bovril Ltd is traced to those times. In October 1871 one Eustaquio de la Riestra put up a beef-salting plant at Santa Elena, on the River Parana, with a partner named Federico Gonzales. This plant was bought in 1880 by the German Kemmerich Company and, in 1908, by Bovril, which also became a landowning and cattle-raising concern. These were followed, in 1910, by the La Plata Cold Storage Co., a United States company better known by its name as from 1916, The Swift of La Plata. Almost a decade later, the Vestey family group, Union International, opened the Anglo meat-packing company on the Buenos Aires South Dock. |
