Aussie lead global red meat research

Leading Australian scientists, headed by Dave Pethick, meat quality programme leader with the Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation (Sheep CRC), recently addressed a two-day meeting in Paris – bringing together 80 experts from 17 countries.

Pethick says the International Meat Quality Congress galvanised support for using the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) system as a common language for implementing new consumer research around the world.

"The aim of the congress was to encourage consumer-focused sensory research for beef and lamb with key international collaborating partners all using common protocols," he explains.

"The workshop unanimously supported the need for evidence-based systems to underpin eating quality for lamb and beef to encourage consumers to keep buying [these] products that cost more than [chicken and pork].

"We are now working towards a global model – suggested name 3G for Global Guaranteed Grading – for sharing sensory data using the MSA protocols that can be used for scientific and commercial purposes."

The congress was organised by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), said to be Europe's top agricultural research institute and the world's number-two centre for agricultural science.

The 19 presentations at the congress focussed on meat eating quality prediction methods which will allow modern beef and lamb products to meet the expectations of consumers who buy red meat.

Pethick says that while many countries had meat quality assessment systems in place, MSA was the only real system available to grade eating quality at the consumer level.

"The MSA approach differs markedly from other systems now in use. Firstly, it is based on consumer responses and secondly, for beef, it independently grades each cut rather than applying a common grade to the entire carcase," he says.

"The system includes information about all the events up to the point when the steak was cooked and eaten – genetics, backgrounding and finishing, pre-slaughter handling of the animal and post-slaughter treatment and processing of the carcase."

Pethick says common protocols have now been developed in France, Korea, Poland, Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and US.

"In all the countries the data has clearly showed enormous commonality in how consumers respond to beef in particular. However, extra precision can be achieved if adjustments are made for issues like alternate production systems not included in the MSA prediction model – for example, beef and dairy bulls or dairy cows, subtle consumer differences between countries and new cooking methods."

• More information on the Sheep CRC's Meat Quality Research Program is available. www.coxinall.us7.list-manage1.com