ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the part also played by the international application of improved methods of production and business organisation. The further application of scientific management and technical improvement to livestock farming and meat processing improved quality, cut costs and extended the range of products. In addition, price fluctuations had effects on all meat producers. The canned meat trade was particularly badly affected as the inflated wartime demand disappeared once supplies of fresh meat were fully restored. In addition to the powerful American firms present well before 1914, the war had strengthened the position of the British owned Union Cold Storage Company, who entered the meat business in Argentina in 1890. The second feature of the industry that had changed by the 1920s was that though the demand for meat was not declining, it was no longer growing at the rate it had before the mid-1900s. Indeed, aggregate demand had almost stagnated.
