THREE emerging technologies in measuring lean meat yield and eating quality have the potential to be 'game changers' for the lamb industry.
Murdoch University associate Prof Graham Gardner told LambEx delegates that present abattoir measurements for carcase quality were poor, but innovations in objective carcase measurement - an electrical impedance probe, dual-energy xray absorptiometry, and hyper spectral imaging - were close to delivering much more accurate indicators.
The industry standard for determining lean meat yield was manual palpation of the GR site on the carcase to estimate fat score, and combining that with carcase weight, but these two measurements together described less than 20 per cent of the variation in lean meat yield.
While intramuscular fat was critical to consumers' enjoyment of lamb, the WA-based researcher said there was no accurate prediction of the amounts in a carcase until now.
In the past seven years, Sheep CRC research had highlighted the importance of lean meat yield and eating quality and its antagonistic relationship.
The extension in the next five years would involve testing and further developing technologies.
This would enable the move from an in-out pathway approach to MSA to the next-generation, cuts-based system ensuring lamb remained a premium product.
Danish company Carometec has developed an electrical impedance probe prototype which is being tested at Murdoch University in the next six months as a measure of intramuscular fat.
It could become commercially available within 12 months.
Prof Gardner said a range of tissue depth-measuring devices, such as Aus-Meat sheep probe, were being used, but genetics had shifted muscle and fat around the carcase, meaning whole carcase measurements were needed rather than a single site.
A quantum leap in lean meat yield measurement was Dual Energy Xray Absorptiometry, which differentiated the amounts of bone, muscle and fat in a carcase.
The machine had been tested against fat levels in carcases determined by CT scan.
In preliminary testing it was achieving more than 90pc correlation with the CT results but a larger data set of 500 carcases of different breeds and weights would soon be assessed in a Meat & Livestock Australia funding project.
The third innovation, hyperspectral imaging, was a little further off but could potentially measure IMF, even meat colour and ossification, to determine the age of lambs at slaughter.
* Full report in Stock Journal, July 24, 2014 issue.
Catherine Miller
Stock Journal's livestock editor and South East correspondent.
Stock Journal's livestock editor and South East correspondent.
