Prime cuts: a fresh look at the sheep meat industry

THE sheep industry has a lot of information to chew through, with the completion of a three-year investigation into the best practices for farms and abattoirs in Australia by researchers at Murdoch University.

Funded by Meat and Livestock Australia, the team analysed every step in the sheep meat supply chain from farms to dinner plates in order to develop guidelines for the industry.

“There were a few results that debunked a lot of myths in the sheep industry,” said National Program Leader, Wesfarmers Ltd Associate Professor David Pethick.

“For example, although it is true that growth rates should be maximised in sheep before slaughter, it does not matter whether the animals are fed grain or pasture. Likewise, the subtleties in meat flavour caused by animal diet are not important for consumers.

“An important factor is to avoid stress as it uses up muscle glycogen, which creates a discoloured product that is hard to store. Even merino sheep, who are renowned for their susceptibility to stress, can be used for meat if proper nutrition and handling techniques are used.”

Building on work in the beef industry, Professor Pethick’s team conducted blind taste tests of a range of sheep meat cuts taken from lamb, hogget and mutton with surprising results.

“Lamb is traditionally considered to be far superior to the older hogget and mutton meat, but consumer trials suggested that hogget and mutton do not deserve their poor reputation,” he said.

“Lamb clearly delivers the best meat ‘across the carcass’ but selected cuts from hogget and mutton performed well especially when served as lean product (i.e. steaks).

“Meat ageing is very important as it allows tenderisation and so increased consumer satisfaction. New technologies have been developed that will allow processors to accelerate the rate of meat aging post-slaughter and this will deliver more tender lamb for the Australian consumers.”

Having established the critical control points of sheep meat eating quality, the team has been benchmarking levels for farms and abattoirs, and is now facilitating the development of quality management systems for lamb supply chains which will be supported by third party audit.

The research work has been internationally acclaimed and is an example of modern research trends in agriculture where a ‘national team’ approach is used to address an industry issue. The research will be published as 16 scientific papers in the Australian Journal of Agricultural Research.