The Refrigerated Ship: How Reefers Carried Southern Hemisphere Beef to Europe

What is a refrigerated ship?

A refrigerated cargo ship, or reefer, carries perishable cargo that needs temperature-controlled handling, such as fruit, meat, vegetables and dairy. Bananas and frozen meat were historically the main cargoes. The article lists three types: side-door vessels with watertight ports in the hull, conventional vessels with top-opening hatches and cranes, and refrigerated container ships where each container has its own cooling unit. Container reefers have partly replaced the older cargo-hold type. The details below come from the Wikipedia article on refrigerator ships.

Early attempts, 1869 to 1877

In 1869 reefers shipped beef carcasses frozen in a salt-ice mixture from Indianola, Texas, to New Orleans for hospitals, hotels and restaurants. By 1874 shipping of frozen beef from America to London had begun, reaching about 10,000 short tons a year, cooled by ice loaded at departure. Insulation, loading techniques, distance and climate limited that method.

In 1876 the first attempt to ship refrigerated meat across the Pacific, the Northam from Australia to the UK, ended in a machinery failure that lost the cargo. That same year French inventor Charles Tellier fitted a methyl-ether plant on the Eboe, renamed Le Frigorifique, which brought refrigerated meat from Argentina. In 1877 the Paraguay, with a plant improved by Ferdinand Carre, carried 5,500 frozen muttons from Argentina to France in excellent condition.

Strathleven and the Bell-Coleman machine

In 1879 the Strathleven, with compression refrigeration, sailed successfully from Sydney to the UK with 40 tons of frozen beef and mutton as part of her cargo. A 1880 voyage from Melbourne, with a Bell-Coleman air machine, took about nine weeks and some 15,000 miles to London. Henry and John Bell and Joseph James Coleman of Scotland had completed the Bell-Coleman dense-air machine in 1879 on the Anchor liner Circassia, which brought chilled beef from the US to London. Alfred Seale Haslam bought the Bell-Coleman patents in 1878 and eventually equipped 400 plants and ships with Bell-Coleman machines.

Note that the article's timeline places the Strathleven's 1879 voyage at Sydney and a further 1880 voyage at Melbourne, so these were separate sailings.

The Dunedin and the frozen meat boom

The clipper Dunedin, owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, was refitted in 1881 with a Bell-Coleman machine. In February 1882 it sailed from Port Chalmers with 4,331 mutton, 598 lamb and 22 pig carcasses, plus butter and game. It reached London after 98 days with the cargo still frozen, and the company made a 4,700 pound profit. The ship's own article covers the voyage in detail.

Soon afterward a large frozen meat trade from New Zealand and Australia to Britain grew, with over 16 refrigerated and passenger refrigerated ships built or refitted by 1900 in Scottish and northern English yards. Within five years there were 172 shipments of frozen meat from New Zealand to the UK. The article says frozen meat and dairy exports continue to form the backbone of New Zealand's economy.

Argentina, the Nelson Line and Britain's appetite

The Nelson brothers, butchers in County Meath, Ireland, shipped live beef to Liverpool, and when Irish supply was not enough they looked at Argentina. Their first refrigerated ship was the Spindrift, renamed Highland Scot in 1890, which carried beef carcasses from Argentina to Britain. The source gives conflicting dates for the Nelson Line itself, so treat the exact founding year as uncertain.

The numbers show the scale. In 1900 a worldwide survey found 356 refrigerated ships, of which 37 percent had air machines, 37 percent ammonia compressors and 25 percent CO2 compressors. In 1900 Britain imported over 360,000 metric tons of refrigerated meat, with 220,000 from Argentina, 95,000 from New Zealand and 45,000 from Australia. By 1910 imports were 760,000 tons a year, and by 1913 the UK fleet included 230 refrigerated ships with a total capacity of 440,000 tons.

Where to read more

For the shore-side version of the same idea, see the refrigerator car article. For more on global beef supply chains, visit the ranching section on farm.FM or a farm.FM story on frozen beef exports.