In return, Britain sent cars and trucks, railway locomotives, industrial machinery, and all kinds of manufactured and retail goods.

One of the trends that has revolutionised Australia and New Zealand’s exporting profile, and particularly the nature of cargo loading at ports, is the staggering change in meat shipments.

For more than a century, carcass trading was the basis of the meat trade. Frozen carcasses being swung over the sides of conventional reefer ships were the backbone of lamb export ports.

Even in 1990, 80% of New Zealand lamb exported went in frozen carcass form. Today, the carcass trade is negligible. The emphasis now is on value-added cuts. The drive today is to produce a finished product, ready at once to enter the supermarket display cabinet. The value is added in New Zealand rather than incurring that expense offshore.

Chilled product is a major component of the meat trade and the effects have been felt both in the meat trade and in ports. The meat industry had to invest huge sums in technology to produce the desired variety of cuts being demanded by an increasingly-sophisticated marketplace. Ports subsequently had to equip either with reefer points for refrigerated containers or make provision for the loading of dedicated reefer vessels.

Today, Australia and New Zealand trade with all parts of the world and the UK and European Union are just one of a myriad of markets supplied by Australasian producers and from whom goods are sought.

But Australia and New Zealand’s 21^st Century focus is firmly on Asia, where Japan and China rate as the major trading partners. And as far as Australia is concerned, while it continues to be a major source of farm products of all kinds, it’s now the vast quantities of exported raw materials such as coal and iron ore that determine the throughput pecking order for Australian ports.