page_title: New Zealand Refrigerating Company
section_title: New Zealand Refrigerating Company
hierarchical_section_title: New Zealand Refrigerating Company / New Zealand Refrigerating Company
caption_attribution_description: English: SS Mataura in dry dock at Auckland harbour. Mataura carried the second frozen meat shipment from Auckland.
context_page_description: New Zealand Refrigerating Company Limited founded 1881 by a committee lead by John Roberts killed New Zealand livestock at its Burnside Works built in 1883 in Green Island Dunedin, froze the carcasses and shipped them for wholesaling in Smithfield, London.
  In 1905 Christchurch Meat Company of Islington bought New Zealand Refrigerating Company Limited and on 25 August 1916 Christchurch Meat Company took its subsidiary's name as its own.
  The main New Zealand Refrigerating Company works at Islington near Christchurch was operated over the last quarter of the 20th century by the same company finally trading as Silver Fern Farms. The works closed in 2008.
  The site in Islington was acquired early in the 21st century cleared and rebuilt as a business and industrial park, Waterloo Business Park, named after Waterloo Road on its eastern boundary.
context_section_description: A committee was formed in Dunedin early in 1881 but it was not until New Zealand Shipping Company's steamer S S Mataura arrived over twelve months later that New Zealand Refrigerating Company directors: John Roberts, Edwin Spence and Alexander Begg took responsibility for overseeing the loading of freshly killed stock owned by runholders for freezing on board ship. As well as the 3,844 sheep, 6 bullocks and 77 sucking pigs the Mataura carried: hares, rabbits, fowls, ducks, barracudas, hapuka, pukeko, frost fish, cheeses, hams and a cask of penguin skins. The New Zealand Refrigerating Company made a tiny profit but the shipping company's costs of the voyage exceeded their freight charge. The shippers on their own account were pleased with results but the overfat sheep were unsaleable.
caption: S S Mataura in dry dock
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