Emphasis on lean lamb

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33750, 24 January 1975, Page 9

Emphasis on lean lamb

lhe markets of the world wanted lean lamb, Mr E. Bell, a supervising grader of the Meat Board, told farmers interested in producing heavy-weight lambs, at Airfoods (N.Z.), Ltd, at Harewood, last week.

They, however, still needed a little fat covering, he said. Thousands of YM or fair average quality 13 to 16 kilograms lambs were going to West Germany, he said, and that country looked like becoming New Zealand’s second biggest market for lamb.

Over-prime lambs were not wanted, he warned, but if the prime 2 lamb (13 to 16 kilograms) was meaty with a good even fat cover it would go anywhere.

Earlier Mr Bell spoke to the farmers about excessive fat cover on lambs using carcases and cuts from a draft of heavy weight lambs for demonstration purposes.

Although the maximum amount of fat cover for a prime lamb measured at the thickest point of the 12th rib had now been reduced from 18 millimetres to 16 millimetres, Mr Bell said that a lamb that had a fat thickness of more than 16 millimetres was still included in the prime grade if it was lean over the loin. If the loin was fat, however, the lamb was fat right through and was rejected. The cuts being displayed in the accompanying photograph by Mr Bell, on the left, and Mr T. G. Maxwell, chairman of Airfoods, are racks from the same heavy weight line of lambs. One is showing excessive fat and the other is exhibiting good meaty lean qualities. Mr Bell said that both cuts were from lambs that had been graded as 8s (prime 16.5 kilograms to 19 kilograms) but the fatty cut was probably from a lamb at the heavy end of the weight scale for the grade whereas the other was from a lamb at the light end of the scale.

Few wether lambs were overfat, he said — it was principally a ewe lamb problem.

Mr Maxwell told the farmers that if an order in Britain that they were seeking eventuated they would want about 1000 lambs per week in the 401 b range.

Mr Maxwell said that they wanted farmers to

produce YM and YH (fair average quality 16.5 to 25.5 kilograms) types of lamb — the sort of lambs that were in demand in Germany, France and the Middle East. They were interested in fostering the production of lean lambs whether they were light or heavy, he said, and if farmers could produce them lean enough at the heavy weights then

they would be able to make more money out of the same numbers of lambs. He noted that whereas 700 lamb carcases could be packed in a container, with the trend to cutting 1000 in bone-in cuts could be put into a container and 1600 in boneless cuts. At present he said that the YM grade lamb under the Meat Board’s schedule was earning a premium of 2c per kilogram over the equivalent weight prime lamb, and it was his belief that the YH grade should command an even higher premium because of the demand for them in France, the Middle East and America at the 20 kilogram or 441 b weight.