The Meat Question: Louis Bullot’s new method and dreams of a meat empire for Orange

In January 1921, the front page of the Orange Leader bore an intriguing, imaginative piece titled, ‘A Peep into the Future,’ speculating on what Orange and the wider world might look like 15 years hence, in 1935.

Brimming with optimism, the writer envisages Orange as a booming city of 50,000 people with thriving industry, six-storey hotels, an extensive tram network and skies filled with flying passenger and cargo transports.

“Had to rise 8000 feet to get out of the road of those darned commercial buses of yours, carting Bullot meat to Sydney. Must have struck a couple hundred of them coming and going,” says the central character device of the fictional piece, somewhat presciently a returned soldier from a war with Japan.

“By the way, what wonderful business they are doing,” he continued. “Their slaughtering yards, process buildings, glue works, tannery, margarine factory, and heaven knows what else, must cover 15 acres.”

Such was Orange’s enthusiasm for ‘Bullot meat’ that few readers would have found this vision of the future to be so fanciful, especially not the man behind it all.

Louis Frederick Bullot was born near New Plymouth, New Zealand, in 1870. There he became a successful builder, but around the turn of the century, he followed his brother and emigrated to New South Wales along with his wife, Etta.

In Sydney, he continued in the building trade and gained a reputation for reliability and sound workmanship. But at some point, he became obsessed with finding a better way to preserve fresh meat without refrigeration. 

It is difficult for us today, with a refrigerator in every home, to imagine how revolutionary such a preserving method would mean to any household of the time. To be able to keep meat safely at home for a week would be a wonder, but particularly for those in the hot, remote interior where meat could spoil in a day.

But, as beneficial as this alone would be, the real prize was in finding a way to export chilled meat in good condition to the large, lucrative markets in Britain and Europe. The Australian colonies had been exporting frozen meat for half a century at this point, but the quality of the product suffered from the freezing process and was less attractive to British consumers.

After years of experimenting, Bullot developed a process that appeared to solve both these problems. Bullot’s methods involved hanging meat carcasses of cuts on rails in an airtight chamber, where it was exposed to gases from a combustion chamber containing a mixture of sulphur, saltpetre, oil of cinnamon, eucalyptus oil, golden wattle bark and charcoal.

After this process, Bullot claimed, the meat could be kept safely without refrigeration for 14 days. If frozen, the treated meat could be kept for five days after having been defrosted and would be in better condition with less loss of moisture than untreated meat.

In 1917 and 1918, Bullot and his backers conducted a number of public experiments in Sydney, Inverell and Orange. The results of which, overseen by federal officials, all seemed to support his claims and excite the interest of those who could see the huge benefits and financial windfall Bullot’s process would bring to the meat industry.

Drawing of Bullot’s apparatus for treating meat included in his US patent application.

“This invention promises to rank second in importance to the discovery of refrigeration and its utilisation in the meat export,” enthused the Brisbane Daily Mail after witnessing the Inverell experiment.

“One important point claimed for the process is that it will prevent loss in weight in freezing by 2 per cent. This alone will mean a great deal, when one considers the enormous quantity of meat frozen in this country, while it is also claimed that it preserves the appearance of the frozen meat better, which would greatly improve our position in the overseas markets if it is the case.” 

Another enticing advantage Bullot’s process offered farmers was that it might just make possible the decentralisation of slaughterhouses, saving them the costs of sending livestock by rail to Sydney and other major cities and the loss of condition of their stock in transport.

“Should country killing works become practical — and they should with an extension of settlement and increase in population – the process would mean a saving of thousands of pounds sterling to our stock owners year after year,” concluded the Daily Mail writer. 

By all accounts, Bullot’s method worked just as he claimed, but would people buy it?

“The Federal Treasurer said, “We are satisfied that it is a good preservative, but we are not satisfied that you can sell your meats in open competition with the public,’’ Bullot later a select committee of the NSW Legislative Assembly.

“The Federal Treasurer in effect said, ‘Go to Orange, open a shop and sell there for six months, but you must not sell under the prices asked by the other butchers’.”

And so, in 1918, the Bullot Meat Process Company was formed in Orange, taking over the Summer Street butchery of Sid Hamer. The company was managed by a former Commonwealth meat inspector, Thomas Henry Eames, who was in fact the very same meat inspector who had overseen the initial experiments in Orange the previous year.

“Orange is indeed fortunate in being the first town in the Commonwealth where the treatment is to be initiated, and the Bullot Co., having patented the process throughout the entire world, should soon be in a position to revolutionise the trade,” wrote the Orange Leader, heralding the opening of the new butchery in October 1918.

“By this process of preserving meat, householders in the town and district of Orange will have no fear of meat purchased today being unfit for use tomorrow. Another benefit that will accrue from using Bullot preservatives meat is that people living in the country will be able to lay in a week’s supply of fresh beef or mutton without danger of loss, either by putrefaction or ‘weeping’.”

Selling only meat submitted to the Bullot process, the business thrived and grew its trade, killing and selling between 8 or nine large cattle and up to 100 sheep weekly. There was great enthusiasm for Bullot meat, which was sold to most of the principal hotels, boarding houses, schools, the hospital, and to people living as far west as Wilcannia.

Success seemed assured for the Bullot company, but there was a problem. Under the NSW Pure Foods Act, preservatives such as the sulphur dioxide (sulphites) that were part of Bullot’s fumigation cocktail could be used in small quantities in sausages and mince meat, but were forbidden when it came to fresh meat.

While the levels of sulphites in meat treated by the Bullot process were below what was considered to be ‘safe’, NSW health officials baulked at granting official approval for the large-scale commercial sale of meat treated with preservatives.

Bullot had been reluctantly granted permission to sell to the public for the six-month trial after applying directly to the NSW Minister for Public Health, but for the next two years, he unsuccessfully campaigned for the Pure Foods Board to make a small level of preservatives permissible in fresh meat.

During this time, Bullot meat continued to be sold in Orange.

“We are breaking the law today,” Bullot told the select committee on December 13, 1920, at a special meeting held at the Royal Hotel in Orange.

“We have asked the Pure Foods Boards more than once to look into our tests. They have always passively refused by not attending.”

Two weeks later, Bullot finally had some success when his appeal to Parliament resulted in the ‘Food Preservation by Sulphur Dioxide Bill’ being passed by the House.

But there was a catch. A clause in the Bill required that “further scientific experiments are carried out to the satisfaction of the Health Department” before the Act could come into force. The Health Department gathered a panel of experts to undertake the task, but they informed the government that they could not proceed without a lengthy clinical investigation on individuals ingesting controlled quantities of food containing sulphites. Apparently, they had even asked for permission to run the experiment on inmates of a Government institution but had been refused.

For the next four years, this strange stand-off continued as the Bullot company continued to operate in Orange in an attempt to force the Board of Health to make a ruling, even while Bullot meat was being consumed regularly in the Orange Hospital.

Frustrated, Bullot sold his stores in Orange in 1924 and turned his attention to the export market. England remained staunchly opposed to the use of preservatives in meat, but there was interest in the process for supplying meat to Rhodesia and the Dutch East Indies.

Strangely, in 1928, eight years after the Bill was passed, the ‘Food Preservation by Sulphur Dioxide Act’ was finally proclaimed. The move was controversial and condemned by many doctors in Australia and abroad.

But despite finally getting the approval he had long sought, Bullot’s dreams of revolutionising the meat industry were never to be. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1930 and Bullot’s limited capital running out, he was unable to continue to promote his process. Also, the rapid advances in mechanical refrigeration, in particular the kerosene fridge, meant there was no longer any need for Bullot and his complicated preservation method.

Bullot never recovered financially from his efforts and was convinced that the failure to adopt his process was due to “the selfish vested interest of large meat companies.”

By the time he reached the age of 70 in 1940, he was completely dependent on his meagre pension and the occasional gift from architects who appreciated his services when he was a successful builder.

Bullot spent his final years living in cheap rooms in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs until his death in 1959.