N.Z. pre-freeze process for meat rated highly

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 19

N.Z. pre-freeze process for meat rated highly

The most important! development in meat technology was the New! Zealand development ofelectrical stimulation of the carcase at the time) of slaughter, said the director of Britain’s! Meat Research Institute,! Professor J. R. Norris, I in Christchurch. This process enables rapidi freezing of meat to proceed: soon after slaughter without' affecting the tenderness of; the meat Professor Norris, who has been the director of the institute near Bristol for two years and a half, described! the treatment as a tremendous step forward and al development that could rev-1 olutionise the technology of! the industry. His institute was doing research and development on! the technique with its appli-l cation to beef processing in mind. Similar work was being done in Australia. A large organisation in! Britain approached the institute with a proposition to build a new slaughterhouse; where it was intended to use fast blast freezing, but when the details of the project had been fed into a computer, and subsequent tests were made by a taste panel, it was found that a significant proportion of the meat processed in this way would be toughened. The answer might well lie in electrical stimulation, he said. ; Another development in which there was a great deal of interest was “hot boning” in which meat was taken off the bone soon after an ani-i mal was slaughtered. A good deal of research and development still needed to be done on this. On at least one commercial product!.>.t line in Britain it was being used on a small scale and there were prospects of being able to incorporate the technique in new abattoirs or slaughterhouses. Professor Norris expressed some concern that there was not enough information available yet to formulate logical hygiene standards. There was not enough basic

| information, he said, so it was difficult to define [hygiene regulations. i He saw as the role of his I institute the study of the i basic facts underlying the I hygiene regulations proposed ! by the European Economic i Community and the provi- ! sion of factual advice for his I country’s negotiators. ; A regulation under dis- | cussion proposed the separation of the boning of meat, and the assembly and packfling of boxes. However, the combination ; of all of these processes, , which was the normal procedure, was found not to provide any' microbiological hazard, the reason for a sepjaration of the procedures. Like New Zealand, Britain 'had also been faced with I meeting E.E.C. standards where its meat handling i installations were to be involved in inter-Community ! trade. I While there were some benefits in international unanimity in hygiene stanI dards, he doubted whether it was really possible to apply : the same hygiene standards in totally different parts of the world. He would support the idea i of an E.E.C. regulation requiring animals to be held in ■ a covered vard overnight be- ■ fore slaughter in Britain, be,l cause it was known that a sudden drop in temperature involving a strain on the animal could have a harmful iieffect on the meat quality. However, he did not know ; whether the same would i apply in a country like Australia. It might be necessary !tto talk to the E.E.C. about J applying equivalent practice ! rather than identical practice. , Asked why' there was not I more information available in the meat industry to form ! the basis for setting standards, Professor Norris said I that it was an old and very traditional industry. For the .: volume of production and J turnover in the food industry, the amount spent on ; research and development in a country like Britain was comparatively small. He i was optimistic about the future of the industry. Devel- ; oping countries wanted prodtein in the form of meat. It

was forecast that there! would be an expansion in! demand in developing coun-l tries of about 140 per cent by 1990. In these areas there would, too, be an expansion of their own livestock industries, with opportunities for the export of technology and expertise from countries like New Zealand. LIVESTOCK : In much of the world, he; said that livestock was the; only form of production that; can be followed on large! areas because the country! cannot be cultivated and; cropped, and for every unit 1 of crop production on other; areas there was a third to aj half a unit of by-product [that can only be utilised! through livestock. A positive approach 1

needed to be taken to textured vegetable protein. He saw it being used largely in animal feed for sometime. In times of high meat prices t.v.p could be used with meat to preserve volume markets. He urged a positive attitude to see how it could best be used to develop and promote the meat business. While he was with Shell Research, Ltd, in Britain for 10 years, Professor Norris’s main interest was in production of single cell protein. He was. recently in Australia on a lecture tour at the invitation of the Australian Microbiolgical Society, and came to New Zealand at the invitation’ of the Meat Industry Research Institute to take part in a conference in Rotorua of people interested in food technology. His visit to Australia and New Zealand provided him with his first opportunity since taking up his present post to see the meat industries and meat scientists in the two countries.