WHAT promises to give an important extra layer of polish to the lamb supply chain, Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading of lamb carcases, has just passed its first financial year of operation.
Meat Standards Australia manager, Michael Crowley, says eight plants have now processed 142,000 bodies under MSA, adding critical mass to the data being used to build a bulletproof grading standard.
“Looking at the figures, there is certainly an improvement in the consistency of meat quality when the product is processed through the MSA pathway,” Mr Crowley said.
Wholesaler demand for MSA-graded lamb was strong.
“We know that lamb eats well,” Mr Crowley said, “but we’re aiming to give more consistency to the product, and that will be a big step forward.”
The rigorous MSA system has already identified processing issues that may have been compromising consistency.
An early discovery was the negative effect of “cold shortening” on eating quality, which has led to some plants installing electrical stimulation units to address the issue.
Existing stimulators are also being calibrated and better monitored to deliver a more uniform result.
“We’re now investing in a lot more consumer taste testing for predicting eating outcomes and cooking methods,” Mr Crowley said.
“Down the track we’ll develop star ratings for those cuts.
“We’re looking to conservatively double our numbers this year, and at the same time move into working with hogget and mutton.
“Our tests show that lamb eats better than hogget and hogget better than mutton. There’s very little difference in loin cuts between lamb and hogget, although there’s difference in how those cuts age out.
“There’s some advantages for lamb in MSA grading, but there’s also opportunities for hogget.”
Given the sophistication of the lamb industry, Mr Crowley expects adoption of MSA from both ends of the supply chain will be potentially stronger and faster than in beef, where MSA principles were pioneered.
“I think we can take a few lessons out of the early days of beef, and look at what did and didn’t work,” he said.
For producers, pre-slaughter guidelines for MSA-graded lamb were less demanding than for cattle, largely because lamb mobs could be boxed with less social stress and meat quality penalty than with boxing cattle.
“The most critical factor is that lambs can’t be off feed for more than 48 hours before slaughter,” he said.
That makes a good case for paddock-processor direct sales, but MLA had also developed a saleyards pathway.
“The 48-hour rule still applies, but the saleyards pathway allows a processor to purchase from a number of different vendors and handle those lambs as a mob through to the processing plant,” he said.
Record lamb prices were proving an impediment to the program’s development, and to the development of the brands it was meant to support.
“It’s very difficult for processors to offer premiums to attract producers into the program because the competition on the lamb job is so strong,” Mr Crowley said.
“It’s actually very easy for producers to become registered – it doesn’t cost them anything – but they may be
getting more money down the road from somebody who doesn’t require that bit of extra work.
“That makes it difficult to set up brands, because they want their brand in the market 365 days a year and need the supply to support that.”
Mr Crowley looks forward to the day when processors can offer the necess-ary premiums to attract the right lambs and get more branded MSA-graded product into the market.
“The brand is the selling point, MSA is just a grading system,” he said.
“Our goal is to put consistency behind the brands, and let it sell the product,” he said.
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