MEAT colour is about to get a scientific challenge.
Chairman of the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) pathways committee Rod Polkinghorne said research was being planned to look into meat colour changes over time so the colour at retail could be better predicted, and the project was included in current research planning and funding discussions.
This would look at animal stress levels, packaging treatments, ageing, colour measurement and consumer evaluation.
Mr Polkinghorne said while the general relationship between PH and meat colour remained strong, over the past year there had been a number of cattle groups submitted for MSA grading that had substantial numbers fail on meat colour while being under PH 5.7.
“This raised a number of concerns and triggered a number of investigations utilising historic MSA data, literature reviews and direct plant and property-based studies.”
It was confirmed that in certain cattle groups, meat colour was consistently above 3 while the PH reached an ultimate value of 5.7 or less.
“It has been further established that despite PH being at its ultimate value, meat colour has continued to reduce to 3 or less over a period up to one week post slaughter and grading.”
The precise mechanisms and biology was not currently understood and the relationship between colour at grading versus ultimate retail colour after ageing and packing was not adequately quantified, he said.
The importance of meat colour was originally included in the MSA model because of commercial retail interests believed it was a critical factor in consumer selection, but it had not been challenged.
Although a limit of meat colour 3 was adopted as the cut-off, Mr Polkinghorne said many processor-based export standards adopted a higher meat colour 4 threshold.
The committee met last month and will recommend it be removed from MSA grading and PH remain the criteria.
If it is to be added, it can only be applied within meat processor specifications.
Meanwhile, Meat and Livestock Australia’s (MLA) general manager of livestock productivity Dr Alex Ball said part of the strategy for MLA and Australian Meat Processor Corporation was to review the Australian Meat Standards.
A draft report is due at the end of the year and new language could be available by March or April next year.
“MLA is taking very seriously R and D into the PH and colour issue,” Dr Ball said. “That’s why have done a lot of work over the last couple of months looking at those areas.
“We’re increasingly looking at the science behind MSA and driving those changes to reflect exactly what influences eating quality.”
